Genre Study:
Short Stories
Table of Contents
Ghost ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Genre Conventions ..................................................................................................................................... 2
“The Superstitious Man’s Story” (1894), Thomas Hardy ...................................................................... 4
“Harry” (1955), Rosemary Timperley ....................................................................................................... 6
“Crossing Over”, Catherine Storr ............................................................................................................ 12
Crime/Detective .................................................................................................................. 15
Genre Conventions ................................................................................................................................... 15
“The Lieabout” (c1930s), Margery Allingham ....................................................................................... 17
“Forever After” (1960), Jim Thompson .................................................................................................. 21
Romance/Love .................................................................................................................... 26
Genre Conventions ................................................................................................................................... 26
“Malachi’s Cove” (1864), Anthony Trollope........................................................................................... 28
“Twelve Hours – Narratives and Perspectives” (1985), Adele Geras ............................................... 40
Science Fiction/Dystopian ................................................................................................ 44
Genre Conventions ................................................................................................................................... 44
“The Pedestrian” (1951), Ray Bradbury ................................................................................................ 47
“Harrison Bergerson” (1968), Kurt Vonneget Jnr ................................................................................. 50
“Examination Day” (1958), Henry Slesar .............................................................................................. 55
Horror/Gothic ...................................................................................................................... 59
Genre Conventions ................................................................................................................................... 59
“The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), Edgar Allan Poe ..................................................................................... 60
“Serena Sees” (1990), G.K. Sprinkle ..................................................................................................... 62
Ghost
Genre Conventions
Ghost stories provide us with ways of thinking about death and dying. They help us
explore our uncertainties about the supernatural and whether there is any form of life
after death. They build upon the fact that, whatever we believe, no one can be
definite about what happens to the spirit when our bodies die. All of us will
experience a fear of dying and most of us will experience great grief when someone
we love dies.
Ghost stories use our fear of death and the unknown to create suspense in the
reader. They draw on deep-rooted superstitions and beliefs that perhaps we all have
an allotted time to die. They portray the meeting of two worlds – the worlds of the
living and the dead – and they create tension about whether a character will step
over the boarders from one world to the other.
They also draw on our experience of what happens to people who are grieving.
When people we love die, grief can make us lose our grip on everyday reality. Life
can seem pointless, and we so desperately want to see the person we are missing
that it is common to imagine catching sight of the dead person. Chost stories often
keep the reader guessing about whether the characters have actually seen a ghost,
or are being driven by grief or fear to imagine they have.
Most commonly, ghost stories deal with the premature or violent death of the ghost
character. They build a story around the idea of an interrupted life, to which the ghost
needs to return to tie up the loose ends. Places and times are highly significant in
ghost stories. The exact time or place of a person’s death can take on symbolic
significance, so too can objects, sounds or smells associated with the dead person.
Since ghost stories are hard to believe, writers use devices that make the story seem
more authentic. The stories are often told in the first person, to suggest that the writer
actually had the experience. Many contain a lot of direct speech with people
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apparently telling the story ‘in their own words’. The central characters are often
sensible, down-to-earth people who would not usually have wild imaginations.
The tension in ghost stories usually builds up as we wait to see whether the world of
the dead of the living will win in the end. However, because we know that we cannot
go on living forever, we are also aware that any victory for the living characters is
only a temporary one. This leaves writers with lots of possibilities for dramatic twists
at the ends of their stories.
3
“The Superstitious Man’s Story” (1894), Thomas Hardy
William, as you may know, was a curious, silent man; you could feel when he came
near 'ee; and if he was in the house or anywhere behind your back without your
seeing him, there seemed to be something clammy in the air, as if a cellar door was
opened close by your elbow. Well, one Sunday, at a time that William was in very
good health to all appearance, the bell that was ringing for church went very heavy all
of a sudden; the sexton, who told me o't, said he'd not known the bell to go so heavy
in his hand for years – and he feared it meant a death in the parish. That was on the
Sunday, as I say. During the week after, it chanced that William's wife was staying up
late one night to finish her ironing, she doing the washing for Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome.
Her husband had finished his supper and gone to bed as usual some hour or two
before. While she ironed she heard him coming down stairs; he stopped to put on his
boots at the stair-foot, where he always left them, and then came on into the livingroom where she was ironing, passing through it towards the door, this being the only
way from the staircase to the outside of the house. No word was said on either side,
William not being a man given to much speaking, and his wife being occupied with
her work. He went out and closed the door behind him. As her husband had now and
then gone out in this way at night before when unwell, or unable to sleep for want of
a pipe, she took no particular notice, and continued at her ironing. This she finished
shortly after, and as he had not come in she waited awhile for him putting away the
irons and things, and preparing the table for his breakfast in the morning. Still he did
not return, and supposing him not far off, and wanting to get to bed herself, tired as
she was, she left the door unbarred and went to the stairs, after writing on the back of
the door with chalk: Mind and do the door (because he was a forgetful man).
'To her great surprise, and I might say alarm, on reaching the foot of the stairs his
boots were standing there as they always stood when he had gone to rest; going up
to their chamber she found him in bed sleeping as sound as a rock. How he could
have got back again without her seeing or hearing him was beyond her
comprehension. It could only have been bypassing behind her very quietly while she
was bumping with the iron. But this notion did not satisfy her: it was surely impossible
that she should not have seen him come in through a room so small. She could not
unravel the mystery, and felt very queer and uncomfortable about it. However, she
would not disturb him to question him then, and went to bed herself.
'He rose and left for his work very early the next morning, before she was awake, and
she waited his return to breakfast with much anxiety for an explanation, for thinking
over the matter by daylight made it seem only the more startling. When he came in to
the meal he said, before she could put her question, "What's the meaning of them
words chalked on the door?"
'She told him, and asked him about his going out the night before. William declared
that he had never left the bedroom after entering it, having in fact undressed, lain
down, and fallen asleep directly, never once waking till the clock struck five, and he
rose up to go to his labour.
'Betty Privett was as certain in her own mind that he did go out as she was of her
own existence, and was little less certain that he did not return. She felt too disturbed
to argue with him, and let the subject drop as though she must have been mistaken.
When she was walking down Longpuddle street later in the day she met
Jim Weedle's daughter Nancy, and said, "Well, Nancy, you do look sleepy to-day!"
' "Yes, Mrs. Privett," says Nancy. "Now don't tell anybody, but I don't mind letting you
know what the reason o't is. Last night, being OldMidsummer Eve, some of us went
to church porch, and didn't get home till near one."
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' "Did ye?" says Mrs. Privett. "Old Midsummer yesterday was it? Faith
I didn't think whe'r 'twas Midsummer or Michaelmas; I'd too much work to do. "
' "Yes. And we were frightened enough, I can tell 'ee, by what we saw."
' "What did ye see?"
'(You may not remember, sir, having gone off to foreign parts so young, that on
Midsummer Night it is believed hereabout that the faint shapes of all the folk in the
parish who are going to be at death's door within the year can be seen entering the
church. Those who get over their illness come out again after a while; those that are
doomed to die do not return.)
' "What did you see?" asked William's wife.
' "Well," says Nancy, backwardly – "we needn't tell what we saw, or who we saw."
' "You saw my husband," says Betty Privett, in a quiet way.
' "Well, since you put it so," says Nancy, hanging fire, "we – thought we did see him;
but it was darkish, and we was frightened, and of course it might not have been he."
' "Nancy, you needn't mind letting it out, though tis kept back in kindness. And he
didn't come out of church again: I know it as well as you."
'Nancy did not answer yes or no to that, and no more was said. But three days after,
William Privett was mowing with John Chiles in Mr.Hardcome's meadow, and in the
heat of the day they sat down to eat their bit o' nunch under a tree, and empty their
flagon. Afterwards both of 'em fell asleep as they sat. John Chiles was the first to
wake, and as he looked towards his fellow-mower he saw one of those great white
miller's-souls as we call 'em – that is to say, a miller-moth – come from William's
open mouth while he slept, and fly straight away. John thought it odd enough, as
William had worked in a mill for several years when he was a boy. He then looked at
the sun and found by the place o't that they had slept a long while, and as William did
not wake, John called to him and said it was high time to begin work again. He took
no notice, and then John went up and shook him, and found he was dead.
'Now on that very day old Philip Hookhorn was down at Longpuddle Spring dipping
up a pitcher of water; and as he turned away, who should he see but William, looking
very pale and odd. This surprised Philip Hookhorn very much, for years before that
time William's little son – his only child – had been drowned in that spring while at
play there, and this had so preyed upon William's mind that he'd never been seen
near the spring afterwards, and had been known to go half a mile out of his way to
avoid the place. On inquiry, it was found that William in body could not have stood by
the spring, being in the mead two miles off ; and it also came out that the time at
which he was seen at the spring was the very time when he died.'
5
“Harry” (1955), Rosemary Timperley
Such ordinary things make me afraid. Sunshine. Sharp shadows on grass. White
roses. Children with red hair. And the name – Harry. Such an ordinary name.
Yet the first time Christine mentioned the name, I felt a premonition of fear.
She was five years old, due to start school in three months’ time. It was a hot,
beautiful day and she was playing alone in the garden, as she often did. I saw her
lying on her stomach in the grass, picking daisies and making daisy-chains with
laborious pleasure. The sun burned on her pale red hair and made her skin look very
white. Her big blue eyes were wide with concentration.
Suddenly she looked towards the bush of white roses, which cast its shadow over the
grass, and smiled.
“Yes, I’m Christine,” she said. She rose and walked slowly towards the bush, her little
plump legs defenceless and endearing beneath the too short cotton skirt. She was
growing fast.
“Why my mummy and daddy,” she said clearly. Then, after a pause, “Oh, but they
are my mummy and daddy.”
She was in the shadow of the bush now. It was as if she’d walked out of the world of
light into darkness. Uneasy, without knowing why, I called her:
“Chris, what are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Come indoors now.”
She said: “I must go in now. Good-bye,” then walked towards the house.
“Chris, who were you talking to?”
“Harry,” she said.
“Who’s Harry?”
“Harry.”
I couldn’t get anything else out of her, so I just gave her some cake and milk and
read to her until bedtime. As she listened, she stared out at the garden. Once she
smiled and waved. It was a relief finally to tuck her up in bed and feel she was safe.
When Jim, my husband, came home I told him about the mysterious ‘Harry’. He
laughed.
“Oh, she’s started that lark, has she?”
“What do you mean, Jim?”
“It’s not so very rare for only children to have an imaginary companion. Some kids
talk to their dolls. Chris has never been keen on her dolls. She hasn’t any brothers or
sisters. She hasn’t any friends her own age. So she imagines someone.”
“But why has she picked that particular name?”
He shrugged. “You know how kids pick things up. I don’t know what you’re worrying
about, honestly I don’t.”
“Nor do I really. It’s just that I feel extra responsible for her. More so than if I were her
real mother.”
“I know, but she’s all right. Chris is fine. She’s a pretty, healthy, intelligent little girl. A
credit to you.”
“And to you.”
“In fact, we’re thoroughly nice parents!”
“And so modest!”
We laughed together and he kissed me. I felt consoled.
Until next morning.
Again the sun shone brilliantly on the small, bright lawn and white roses. Christine
was sitting on the grass, cross-legged, staring towards the rose bush, smiling.
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“Hello,” she said. “I hoped you’d come … Because I like you. How old are you? … I’m
only five and a piece … I’m not a baby! I’m going to school soon and I shall have a
new dress. A green one. Do you go to school? … What do you do then?” She was
silent for a while, nodding, listening, absorbed.
I felt myself going cold as I stood there in the kitchen. “Don’t be silly. Lots of children
have an imaginary companion,” I told myself desperately. “Just carry on as if nothing
were happening. Don’t be a fool.”
But I called Chris in earlier than usual for her mid-morning milk.
“Can Harry come too?”
“No!” The cry burst from me harshly.
“Goodbye, Harry. I’m sorry you can’t come in but I’ve got to have my milk,” Chris
said, then ran towards the house.
“Why can’t Harry have milk too?” she challenged me.
“Who is Harry, darling?”
“Harry’s my brother.”
“But Chris, you haven’t got a brother. Daddy and Mummy have only got one child,
one little girl, that’s you. Harry can’t be your brother.”
“Harry’s my brother. He says so.” She bent over the glass of milk and emerged with a
smeary top lip. Then she grabbed at the plate of biscuits. At least ‘Harry’ hadn’t spoilt
her appetite!
I didn’t mention any of this to Jim that night. I know he’s only scoff as he’d done
before. But when Christine’s ‘Harry’ fantasy went on day after day, I found it got more
and more on my nerves.
One Sunday, when Jim heard her at it he said:
“I’ll say one thing for imaginary companions, they help a child on with her talking.
Chris is talking much more freely than she used to.”
“With an accent,” I blurted out.
“An accent?”
“A slight cockney accent.”
“My dearest, every London child gets a slight cockney accent. It’ll be much worse
when she goes to school and meets lots of other kids.”
“We don’t talk cockney. Where does she get it from? Who can she be getting it from
except Ha – ?” I couldn’t say the name.
“The baker, the milkman, the dustman, the coalman, the window cleaner – want any
more?”
“I suppose not.” I laughed rather ruefully.
“Do you know what I think you should do to put your mind at rest?”
“What?”
“Take Chris along to see old Dr Webster tomorrow. Let him have a little talk with her.”
“Do you think she’s ill – in her mind?”
“Good heavens, no! But when we come across something that’s beyond us, it’s as
well to take professional advice.”
Next day I took Christine to see Dr Webster. I left her in the waiting-room while I told
him briefly about Harry. He nodded sympathetically, then he said:
“It’s a fairly unusual case, Mrs James, but by no means unique. I’ve had several
cases of children’s imaginary companions becoming so real to them that the parents
got the jitters. Christine is a rather lonely little girl, isn’t she?”
“She doesn’t know any other children. We’re new to the neighbourhood, you see. But
that will be put right when she starts school.”
“And I think you’ll find that when she goes to school and meets other children, these
fantasies will disappear. You see, every child needs company of her own age, and if
7
she doesn’t get it, she invents it. Older people who are lonely talk to themselves.
That doesn’t mean that they’re crazy, just that they need to talk to someone. A child
is more practical. Seems silly to talk to oneself, she thinks, so she invents someone
to talk to. I honestly don’t think you’ve anything to worry about.”
“That’s what my husband says.”
“I’m sure he does. Still, I’ll have a chat with Christine as you’ve brought her. Leave us
alone together.”
I went to the waiting-room to fetch Chris. She was at the window. She said: “Harry’s
waiting.”
“Where, Chris?” I said quietly.
“There. By the rose bush.”
The doctor had a bush of white roses in his garden.
“There’s no one there,” I said. Chris gave me a glance of un-childlike scorn. “Dr
Webster wants to see you now, darling,” I said shakily. “You remember him, don’t
you? He gave you sweets when you were getting better from chicken pox.”
“Yes,” she said and went willingly enough to the doctor’s surgery. I waited restlessly.
Faintly I heard their voices through the wall, heard the doctor’s chuckle, Christine’s
high peal of laughter. She was talking away to the doctor in a way she didn’t talk to
me.
When they came out, he said: “Nothing wrong with her whatever. She’s just an
imaginative little monkey. A word of advice, Mrs James. Let her talk about Harry. Let
her become accustomed to confiding in you. I gather you’ve shown some disapproval
of this “brother” of hers so she doesn’t talk much to you about him. He makes
wooden toys, doesn’t he, Chris?”
“Yes, Harry makes wooden toys.”
“And he can read and write, can’t he?”
“And swim and climb trees and paint pictures. Harry can do everything. He’s a
wonderful brother.” Her little face flushed with adoration.
The doctor patted me on the shoulder and said: “Harry sounds a very nice brother for
her. He’s even got red hair like you, Chris, hasn’t he?”
“Harry’s got red hair,” said Chris proudly, “redder than my hair. And he’s nearly as tall
as Daddy, only thinner. He’s as tall as you, Mummy. He’s fourteen. He says he’s tall
for his age. What is tall for his age?”
“Mummy will tell you about that as you walk home,” said Dr Webster. “Now, goodbye,
Mrs James. Don’t worry. Just let her prattle. Goodbye, Chris. Give my love to Harry.”
Another week passed. It was Harry, Harry all the time. The day before she was to
start school, Chris said: “Not going to school.”
“You’re going to school tomorrow, Chris. You’re looking forward to it. You know you
are. There’ll be lots of other little girls and boys.”
“Harry says he can’t come too.”
“You won’t want Harry at school He’ll – “ I tried hard to follow the doctor’s advice and
appear to believe in Harry – “He’ll be too old. He’d feel silly among little boys and
girls, a great lad of fourteen.”
“I won’t go to school without Harry. I want to be with Harry.” She began to weep,
loudly, painfully.
She slept with tearstains still on her face.
It was still daylight. I went to the window to draw the curtains. Golden shadows and
long strips of sunshine in the garden. Then, almost like a dream, the long thin clearcut shadow of a boy near the white roses. Like a mad woman I opened the window
and shouted: “Harry! Harry!”
8
I thought I saw a glimmer of red among the roses, like close red curls on a boy’s
head. Then there was nothing.
Next day I started on my secret mission. I took a bus to town and went to the big,
gaunt building I hadn’t visited for over five years. Then, Jim and I had gone together.
The top floor of the building belonged to the Greythorne Adoption Society. I climbed
the four flights and knocked on the familiar door with its scratched paint.
Miss Cleaver, a tall, thin grey-haired woman with a charming smile, a plain, kindly
face and a very wrinkled brow, rose to meet me. “Mrs James, how nice to see you
again. How’s Christine?”
“She’s very well. Miss Cleaver, I’d better get straight to the point. I know you don’t
normally divulge the origin of a child to its adopters and vice versa, but I must know
who Christine is.”
“Sorry, Mrs James,” she began, “our rules …”
“Please let me tell you the whole story, then you’ll see I’m not just suffering from
vulgar curiosity.”
I told her about Harry.
When I’d finished she said: “It’s very queer. Very queer indeed. Mrs James, I’m going
to break my rule for once. I’m going to tell you in confidence where Christine came
from. She was born in a very poor part of London. There were four in her family,
father mother, son and Christine herself.”
“Son?”
“Yes, He was fourteen when – when it happened.”
“When what happened?”
“Let me start at the beginning. The parents hadn’t really wanted Christine. The family
lived in one room at the top of an old house which should have been condemned by
the Sanitary Inspector in my opinion. It was difficult enough when there were only
three of them, but with a baby as well life became a nightmare. The mother was a
neurotic creature, slatternly, unhappy, too fat. After she’d had the baby she took no
interest in it. The brother, however, adored the little girl from the start. He got into
trouble for cutting school to se could look after her.
“One morning in the small hours, a woman in the ground-floor room saw something
fall past her window and heard a thud on the ground. She went out to look. The son
of the family was there on the ground. Christine was in his arms. The boy’s neck was
broken. He was dead. Christine was blue in the face but still breathing faintly.
“The woman woke the household, sent for the police and the doctor, then they went
to the top room. They had to break down the door, which was locked and sealed
inside. An overpowering smell of gas greeted them, in spite of the open window.
“The found husband and wife dead in the bed and a note from the husband saying: ‘I
can’t go on. I am going to kill them all. It’s the only way.’
“The police concluded that he’d sealed up door and windows and turned on the gas
when his family were asleep, then lain beside his wife until he drifted into
unconsciousness, and death. But the son must have wakened. Perhaps he struggled
with the door but couldn’t open it. He’d been too weak to shout. All he could do was
pluck away the seals from the window, open it, and fling himself out, holding his
adored little sister tightly in his arms.”
“So her brother saved her life and died himself?” I said.
“Yes. He was a very brave boy.”
“Perhaps he thought not so much of saving her as keeping her with him. Oh dear!
That sounds ungenerous. I didn’t mean to be. Miss Cleaver, what was his name?”
9
“I’ll have to look that up for you.” She referred to one of her many files and said at
last: “The family’s name was Jones and the fourteen-year-old brother was called
‘Harold’.”
“And did he have red hair?” I murmured.
“That I don’t know, Mrs James.”
“But it’s Harry. The boy was Harry. What does it mean? I can’t understand it.”
“It’s not easy, but I think perhaps deep in her unconscious mind Christine has always
remembered Harry, the companion of her babyhood. We don’t think of children as
having much memory, but there must be images of the past tucked away somewhere
in the little heads. Christine doesn’t invent this Harry. She remembers him. So clearly
that she’s almost brought him to life again.”
“May I have the address of the house where they lived?”
The house seemed deserted. It was filthy and derelict. But one thing made me stare
and stare. There was a tiny garden. A scatter of bright uneven grass splashed the
bald brown patches of earth. But the little garden had one strange glory that none of
the other houses in the poor sad street possessed – a bush of white roses.
A voice startled me: “What are you doing here?” It was an old woman, peering from
the ground-floor window.
“I thought the house was empty,” I said.
“Should be. Been condemned. But they can’t get me out. Nowhere else to go. Won’t
go. The others went quickly enough after it happened. No one else wants to come.
They say the place is haunted. So it is. But what’s the fuss about? Life and death.
They’re very close. You get to know that when you’re old. Alive or dead. What’s the
difference?”
She looked at me with yellowish, blood shot eyes and said: “I saw him fall past my
window. That’s where he fell. Among the roses. He still comes back. I see him. He
won’t go away until he gets her.”
“Who – who are you talking about?
“Harry Jones. Nice boy he was. Red hair. Very thin. Too determined though. Always
got his own way. Loved Christine too much, I thought. Died among the roses. Used
to sit down here with her for hours, by the roses. Then he died there. Or do people
die? The church ought to give us an answer, but it doesn’t. Not one you can believe.
Go away, will you? This place isn’t for you. It’s for the dead who aren’t dead, and the
living whoa ren’t alive.”
The crazy eyes staring at me beneath the matted white fringe of hair frightened me.
Mad people are terrifying. One can pity them, but one is still afraid. I murmured: “I’ll
go now. Goodbye,” and tried to hurry across the hard hot pavements although my
legs felt heavy and half-paralysed, as in a nightmare.
The sun blazed down on my head, but I was hardly aware of it. I lost all sense of time
or place as I stumbled on.
Then I heard something that chilled my blood.
A clock struck three.
At three o’clock I was supposed to be at the school gates, waiting for Christine.
Where was I now? How near the school? What bus should I take?
I made frantic inquiries of passers-by, who looked at me fearfully, as I had looked at
the old woman.
At last I caught the right bus and, sick with dust, petrol fumes and fear, reached the
school. I ran across the hot, empty playground. In a classroom, the young teacher in
white was gathering her books together.
“I’ve come for Christine James. I’m her mother. I’m so sorry I’m late. Where is she?” I
gasped.
10
“Christine James?” The girl frowned, then said brightly: “Oh yes, I remember, the
pretty little red-haired girl. That’s all right, Mrs James. Her brother called for her. How
alike they are, aren’t they? And so devoted. It’s rather sweet to see a boy of that age
so fond of his baby sister. Has your husband got red hair, like the two children?”
“What did – her brother – say?” I asked faintly.
“He didn’t say anything. When I spoke to him, he just smiled. They’ll be home by
now, I should think. I say, do you feel all right?”
“Yes, thank you. I must go home.”
I ran all the way home through the burning streets.
“Chris! Christine, where are you? Chris! Chris!” Sometimes even now I hear my own
voice of the past screaming through the cold house. “Christine! Chris! Where are
you? Answer me! Chrrriiiiss!” Then: “Harry! Don’t take her away! Come back! Harry!
Harry!”
Demented I rushed out into the garden. The sun struck me like a hot blade. The
roses glared whitely. The air was so still it seemed to stand in timelessness,
placelessness. For a moment, I seemed very near to Christine, although I couldn’t
see her. Then the roses danced before my eyes and turned red. The world turned
red. Blood red. Wet red. I fell through the redness to blackness to nothingness.
For weeks I was in bed with sunstroke which turned to brain fever. During that time
Jim and the police searched for Christine in vain. The futile search continued for
months. The papers were full of the strange disappearance of the red-haired child.
The teacher described the ‘brother’ who had called for her. There were newspaper
stories of kidnapping, baby-snatching, child-murders. Then the sensation died down.
It became just another unsolved mystery in police files.
And only two people knew what had happened. An old crazed woman living in a
derelict house, and myself.
Years have passed. But I walk in fear.
Such ordinary things make me afraid. Sunshine. Sharp shadows on grass. White
roses. Children with red hair. And the name – Harry. Such an ordinary name!
11
“Crossing Over”, Catherine Storr
If she hadn’t been fond of dogs, she would never have volunteered for this particular
job. When her class at school were asked if they would give up some of their spare
time towards helping old people, most of the tasks on offer had sounded dreary.
Visiting housebound old men and women, making them cups of tea and talking to
them; she hadn’t fancied that, and she wasn’t any good at making conversation, let
alone being able to shout loud enough for a deaf person to hear. Her voice was
naturally quiet. She didn’t like the idea of doing anyone else’s shopping, she wasn’t
good enough at checking that she’d got the right change. The check-out girls in the
super-market were too quick, ringing up the different items on the cash register. Nor
did she want to push a wheelchair to the park. But walking old Mrs Matthews’ dog,
that had seemed like something she might even enjoy. She couldn’t go every
evening, but she would take him for a good long run on the Common on Saturdays,
and on fine evenings, when the days were longer, she’d try to call for him after school
some week-days. She had started out full of enthusiasm.
What she hadn’t reckoned with was the dog himself. Togo was huge, half Alsatian,
half something else which had given him long woolly hair, permanently matted and
dirty. Once, right at the beginning, she had offered to bathe and groom him, but Mrs
Matthews had been outraged by the suggestion, was sure the poor creature would
catch cold, and at the sight of the comb, Togo backed and growled and showed his
teeth. It was as much as she could do to fasten and unfasten his leash, and he did
not make that easy. The early evening walks weren’t quite so bad, because there
wasn’t time to take him to the Common, so he stayed on the leash all the time. Even
then he was difficult to manage. He seemed to have had no training and he certainly
had no manners. He never stopped when she told him to, never came when she
called him, so that every Saturday, when she dutifully let him run free among the
gorse bushes and little trees on the Common, she was afraid she might have to
return to Mrs Matthews without the dog, confessing that he had run away. Mrs
Matthews did not admit that Togo was unruly and difficult to manage, any more than
she would admit that he smelled. It was only a feeling that she shouldn’t go back on
her promise to perform this small service to the community that kept the girl still at
the disagreeable task.
This particular evening was horrible. She’d been kept later at school than usual, and
although it was already March, the sky was overcast, it was beginning to get dark,
and a fine drizzling rain made the pavements slippery. Togo was in a worse mood
than usual. He had slouched along, stopping for whole minutes at lampposts and
dustbins and misbehaving extravagantly in the most inconvenient places, in spite of
her frantic tugs at the leash to try to get him off the pavement. He was too strong for
her to control, and he knew it. She almost believed that he had a spite against her,
and enjoyed showing that he didn’t have to do anything she wanted, as if it wasn’t
bad enough having to go out in public with an animal so unkempt and anti-social.
They reached the zebra crossing on the hill. The traffic was moving fast, as it always
did during the evening rush-hour. She would have to wait for a break before she
could step off the pavement, especially as, in the half dark, she knew from her Dad’s
comments when he was driving, pedestrians on the road were not easy to see. She
stood still and dragged at Togo’s lead. But Togo did not mean to be dictated to by a
little schoolgirl, and after a moment’s hesitation, he pulled too. He was off, into the
middle of the on-coming traffic, wrenching at the leash, which she had twisted round
her hand in order to get a better grip. She threw all her weight against his, but she
was no match for him. She thought she felt the worn leather snap, she heard the
12
sound of screaming brakes and someone shouted. She had time to think, ‘What am I
going to say to Mrs Matthews?’, before her head swam and she thought she was
going to faint.
She found herself standing on the further side of the road. She saw a huddle of
people, surrounding stationary cars. Two drivers had left their vehicles and were
abusing each other. As the crowd swayed, she saw the bonnet of a red car crumpled
by its contact with the back of a large yellow van. She saw, too, a dark stain on the
road surface. Blood. Blood made her feel sick, and her head swam again. She
hesitated, knowing that she ought to go among the watching people to make herself
look, perhaps to try to explain how Togo had pulled, how she hadn’t been strong
enough to hold him back. Someone should be told whose dog he was. Someone
would have to go and break the terrible news to Mrs Matthews.
As she was considering this, she heard the siren of a police car and the two-note call
of an ambulance. She thought, ‘Perhaps someone got badly hurt in one of the cars,
and it’s all my fault.’ Her courage evaporated, and she turned away from the accident
and began to walk, on legs that trembled, up the hill towards her own home. She
thought, ‘I’ll go and tell Mum.’ But then she remembered how much Mrs Matthews
loved horrible Togo, how she talked about him as her only friend, and how dreadful it
was going to be for her to open her front door to find a policeman telling her that her
dog was dead. Besides, the policeman might say that it was all her, the girl’s, fault.
She had to go first to Mrs Matthews’ house, to break the news gently, and also to
explain that she had tried her best to prevent the accident.
She found that she must have been walking really fast, which was surprising,
considering how much she was dread-ing the ordeal in front of her. She had reached
the grocer’s and the newspaper shop at the top of the High Street almost before
she’d realized. She saw Sybil Grainger coming out of the newspaper shop, and she
was ready to say, ‘Hi!’ and to pretend that there was nothing wrong, but luckily Sybil
seemed not to have seen her. She turned the corner into Grange Road, relieved that
she hadn’t had to carry on a conversation. Grange Road also seemed shorter than
usual; now she had to go along Fenton Crescent till she reached the small side street
where Mrs Matthews lived, in one of the rowof little old cottages known as Paradise
Row.
Her heart beat furiously as she unlatched the small wooden gate and walked the
short distance up to the front door, rehearsing exactly how to say what she had to.
She lifted the knocker. As it came down on the wood, it made a hollow, echoing
sound.
Extraordinary. From the other side of the door, she heard something very much like
Togo’s deep, menacing growl. She must be in such a state of nerves that she was
imagining impossible things. Or perhaps when she felt faint out there in the road, she
had fallen and hit her head and been concussed. She felt her scalp, under the
straight, silky hair, but she couldn’t find any tender spots. She waited. Mrs Matthews
was arthritic and always took a long time to answer the door, and there was no hurry
for the message she was going to receive.
Steps came slowly, dragging a little, along the passage. The door opened, and she
braced herself for the shock she was about to administer and the scolding she was
certainly going to receive.
But when Mrs Matthews looked out, she behaved in a very peculiar way. Instead of
saying immediately, ‘Where’s Togo?’ she asked nothing of her visitor, but bent
forward and peered out, looking up and down the short row of cottages, as if she
were searching for something or someone who might be coming or going in the
street. Her head with its thinning grey hair was so close that the girl stepped back,
13
opening her mouth to begin her explanation. But what she saw in the passage behind
the old woman stopped her from uttering a sound.
At the further end of the passage was a dog. Togo. Togo, whole, apparently
unharmed, his collar round his neck, and the end of the broken leash still attached,
dragging behind him.
For a moment she thought he was going to spring forward and attack her. Then she
saw that, instead, he was backing, shrinking as far away as he could get. He was
making a curious noise, not a howl, nor a growl, but a sort of whine. She noticed that
he was trembling. She had never seen Togo tremble before. He was showing whites
round his yellow eyes and the short hair round his muzzle was bristling.
She started to speak. But Mrs Matthews appeared not to have heard her. She was
turning back to calm the terrified dog. She was saying, ‘Whatever’s the matter with
you, Togo? Think you’re seeing a ghost?’
14
Crime/Detective
Genre Conventions
Stories of crime and detection have been popular for many years. Perhaps this is
because of a human fascination with crime. If we see a crowd gathering at the scene
of a crime we stop to find out what happened, who was involved and who committed
the crime. It is this desire to find out, this basic curiosity to discover ‘whodunit’, that
makes us keep turning the pages when reading detective fiction.
Crime stories concern justice as their core value and the core emotion is intrigue. We
become fascinated with discovering the how, who, what, where and why of the
fictional crime as we follow an investigator from beginning to middle to end. And that
emotional experience, intrigue, keeps us coming back for more and more.
Usually the writer leaves a careful trail of clues for the reader to follow. If we are alert
readers we can pick up the clues and solved the puzzle. However, things are not
always as they seem and we will often find ourselves distracted by misleading clues
– red herrings – which are designed to confuse. This is all part of the fun of reading
detective fiction.
Detective fiction also deals with the idea of crime bringing disorder and chaos to an
ordered world. Ordered worlds of the English village where the middle classes find
the comfort and calm of their lives threatened by crime turn to the detective – often a
gifted amateur, sometimes an eccentric brainbox – to restore order to their lives.
Cities, where danger lurks in the shadows, tend to be the settings of stories that tend
to dramatize the fears of the middle classes concerning crime and violence, always
with the reassurance that the crime will be solved and order restored eventually.
Other crime fiction, of the American ‘hard-boiled’ school, takes its starting point the
grim realities of urban living. In these stories a hard-nosed, profession detective
investigates the seedier side of city life, often making no moral judgement about the
crime they encounter.
Most crime and detective fiction involves the following features:
15
1. The detective must be memorable: Fictional detectives are expected to be
both clever and a bit out of the ordinary. They must have some small habit,
mannerism, eccentricity, interest, talent – anything that sets them apart from
the crowd.
2. The crime must be significant: Traditionally, the detective novel is
constructed around a murder or a great theft. Murder is a crime that cannot be
reversed or made amends for; thus, it is a crime worth the detective’s (and the
reader’s) time and efforts to solve.
3. The criminal must be a worthy opponent: In real life, crimes are committed
by ordinary, everyday, sometimes dull and stupid people. However, if fictional
detectives are to show off their considerable skills, they must match wits with
adversaries of equal cleverness. The mind of the criminal is often the
intellectual equal of the detective’s. The conflict becomes a battle of intellects
between the detective, his/her opponent, and the reader.
4. All the suspects, including the criminal, must be presented early in the
story: Half the fun of reading a good detective story comes from the mental
contest between the reader and the detective in a race to solve the crime. The
reader must be able to safely assume that the perpetrator of the crime is one
of the main characters in the story, not someone whom the author is going to
slip in on the unsuspecting reader in the next-to-the-last chapter.
5. All clues discovered by the detective must be made available to the
reader: Like not springing any surprise suspects, this is another “fair play” rule
to which the author must adhere. The reader must be given the same
opportunity to solve the crime as the detective, and this means getting the
same evidence at the same time it is made available to the detective. Of
course, an author may deliberately mislead the reader (red herrings!), as long
as his fictional detective is similarly deceived.
6. The solution must appear logical and obvious when the detective
explains how the crime was solved: The reader must be convinced that he
could have come to exactly the same conclusion as the detective. In the end,
the reader must see how all the little tidbits of information fit together like so
many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It is for this reason that detective stories are
so appealing.
16
“The Lieabout” (c1930s), Margery Allingham
I still have the brooch but I can hardly wear it. I thought of throwing it away once, but
it is so very pretty. I don’t think it is valuable but I have never dared to take it into a
jeweller’s to find out. It is a very awkward position.
I might have sent it back to the people who owned it, in fact I ought to have done
that, but if ever it was traced to me who would believe my story?
It was when we lived in London. We had a small flat in a courtyard leading off High
Holborn, right in the city. The courtyard was really only the foot of an air-shaft striking
down amid enormous office buildings. There were only two doors in it; one belonged
to a printing works and the other one was ours.
When you opened our door you found yourself at the food of a flight of steep stiars,
at the top of which were our three rooms and a sort of corridor called a kitchenettebath.
Our domain had once been the caretaker’s premises of the insurance building which
was below us and still ran right through to the main street. By the time we went there
it had been converted into two shops. These shops were empty when we arrived and
remained so for nearly a year, although from time to time gangs of workmen were
very busy in them, obliterationg, we supposed, still more of the atmosphere of
insurance.
There are several odd things about living in the city. One is the quiet of the place at
night. When we moved to the country the noises of the night brids were almost too
much for us after that deathly peace of the City of London when the offices have
closed.
Another curious thing is the surprising intimacy and friendliness of it all. In no village
in which I ever lived did I acquire so many acquaintances.
The shops where one could buy the ordinary necessities of life as opposed to an
adding machine, a battleship or a two-thousand-guinea emerald ring were all of the
small and homely variety and were nearly all of them tucked away in courtyards like
our own. The people who owned them were friendly and obliging and told us their
family histories at the slightest encouragement.
The news-sellers and the hawkers were other regulars who were anxious to gossip
or pass the time of day, and as I walked down the crowded pacement with my
shopping basket on my arm I found I had as many people to nod to as if I were in a
small town street which had suddenly become overrun with half a million foreigners.
I first met the Lieabout in our own yard. He was sitting there one evening among a
pile of packing cases from the printing works when I went out to play with Addlepate.
Addlepate leapt on him, mistaking him for a sack of waste paper in which he
delighted. The misapprehension lead to a sort of introduction and after a while the
Lieabout watched the dog to see that he did not go out into the traffic and come to
harm and I went up to get the man some tea.
He was a frail old person with a beaky face and little bright red eyes like a ferret or
one of the old black rats who come out and dance on the cobbles in the small hours.
All lieabouts are necessarily dirty. Genuine tramping can never be a hygienic method
of life. But he was horribly so. He looked as though he had just slipped down from his
niche among the gargoyles of St Paul’s before the cleaners could get him. He was
sooty with London, and his garments, which were varied and of dubious origin, were
all the same grey-black colour, and not with dye.
He was glad of the tea, and when I said I had not seen him about before, he
explained that he had come up from Cheapside, where he had been spending the
summer. He did not ask for money and I did not offer him any, naturally. We parted
17
friends, he to return to his packing cases in which he was making himself a
temporary home and I to my work upstairs.
He lived in the packing cases for nearly a week and we kept up a nodding
acquaintance.
I was out shopping one morning when I saw the brooch. It was on a lower shelf in the
window of one of those very big jewellers and silversmiths whose principal trade
seems to be in challenge cups and presentation plates. The shop was not quite
opposite the entrance to our courtyard but about fifty yards down on the other side of
the traffic. I stood for some time looking at the brooch. It consisted of seven large
topaz set in oxydised silver and the finished effect was rather like the rose window in
Notre Dame.
I was still gazing at it when the Lieabout appeared at my elbow.
“Nice, ain’t it?” he said. “Goin’ to ‘ave it?”
I laughed and indicated my basket, which held one of Addlepate’s Friday bones
protruding rather disgustingly from a sea of lettuce.
“not this week. Food’s gone up,” I said, and would have passed on, but the ornament
had evidently attracted him, too, for he came nearer to look at it and I should have
had to brush past him to get into the jostling stream in the middle of the pavement
again.
“It’s not worfa thousand quid,” he observed, after a moment or so of contemplation.
“Go in an’ arsk ‘em. They’ll say a tenner, I betcha.”
“Very likely,” I said. “And what should I do?”
He grinned at me, disclosing a most disreputable assortment of different-size teeth.
“Same as me, I reckon,” he said. “Beat it like one o’clock. ‘Day, lady.”
I went home and forgot all about the incident and the next day was Saturday.
Up to this point the story was quite ordinary, but once the police came into it the
whole thing became a little fantastic.
Saturday morning in the city always has a last day at boarding school atmosphere.
Fewer strangers swoop out of the fat red buses or come boiling up out of the tubes,
and those that do appear are definitely in holiday mood. When the big clock of St
Paul’s strikes noon the exodus begins, and by a quarter to one the streets look like a
theatre after the show is over.
The road outside our courtyard, which all the week had been a sort of nightmare
racing circuit, turned suddenly into a great river of dull glass, with only an occasional
bus or taxi speeding happily down its wide expanse.
There were people about, of course, but only a dozen or so, and the city policemen in
their enormous helmets, which they use as personal suitcases, I believe, stood out,
lonely and important.
It was nearly two o
Clock on this particular Saturday afternoon when the police arrived. My husband
leant out of the studio window and reported that there were two large bobbies on the
step. I went down to open the door. None of our visitors had left a car outside the
yard gates for some considerable time, but although my conscience was clear, much
clearer than it is now, I felt vaguely uneasy. One policeman may be a friend, but two
are the Law.
On the step I found two of the largest, bluest specimens I have ever seen, and they
were both vastly uncomfortable. They hesitated, eyeing first me and then each other
with embarrassment.
I waited awkwardly for them to begin, and presently the larger one spoke.
“I wonder if you’d do me a personal favour, Ma’am?” he said.
It was such an unexpected request that I gaped at him, and he continued:
18
“I want you to go out into the street and look in the empty shop next door. Don’t say
anything to anyone. Just behave perfectly casual, and then come back and tell us
what you think you see.”
I began to feel a trifle lightheaded, but they were certainly real policemen and,
anyway, Addlepate was barking his head off at the top of the stairs.
“All right,” I said stupidly. “Aren’t you coming?”
The other constable shook his head.
“No, Ma’am. We don’t want a crowd to collect. That’s our idea. See?”
I went off obediently, and as soon as I turned out of the yard I saw that any hopes my
official friends might have cherished concerning the absence of a crowd were
doomed to disappointment. Everyone in the street seemed to be converging on the
first of the empty shops, and I saw another policeman hurrying down the road
towards the excitement.
On the step of the shop stood my friend the Lieabout. He was making a tremendous
noise.
“It’s a disgrace!” he was shouting. “A bloomin’ disgrace! It’s bin there five days to my
knowledge. Look at it. Look at it!”
I peered in through the plate glass and suddenly saw what he meant. The sight made
me feel slightly sick. At the back of the shop was an archway leading into a further
salon, which was lit by a skylight. All kinds of decorators’ debris was strewn around,
but among the whitewash pails, the planks and the trestles, was something covered
with an old coat and a lump of sacking. The shape was suggestive. But the thing that
mad it horrible was the boot. The boot stuck out from beneath the coat so naturally
and yet so lifelessly.
“It’s a corp!” shrieked the Lieabout, to the crowd which had just reached us. “A corp!
Bin there five days. The p’lice won’t do nothink. It’s a murder, that’s wot it is. A
murdered corp!”
He turned to me.
“What are you waitin’ for lady? Go and tell the rozzers it’s a corp.”
His voice in my ear recalled me to my senses and I hurried back to my visitors. They
were polite but impatient when I gave them my opinion, and it suddenly dawned upon
me why I had been singled out for their confidence. A police officer is not allowed to
enter private property without authority, nor do the regulations let him ask the owners
of such property for permission to enter. But once he is invited in, and has a witness
to prove it, he can go whereever his good sense tells him his duty lies.
“If you get out of our bedroom window on to the roof at the back of the shop you
could look through the skylight,” I said. “Would you care to?”
They were upstairs in an instant, and I had barely time to explain to my astonished
husband before they were in the bedroom, negotiating the window. I say ‘negotiating’
because their climb through it required finesse, and a delicacy one would hardly have
expected in men of their bulk.
It was one of those awkward old-fashioned sliding casements which permit a space
about two and a half feet by one and a quarter when opened to their fullest extent.
It took a little time but out they went at last, helmets and all, and my husband with
them. They disappeared over the roofs, and I was left to await their return.
However, by this time an entirely unsuspected bloodlust had taken possession of me
and, unable to control my impatience where I was, I trotted down into the yard again
and out into the street.
To be honest, I did not reach the street. The crowd was packed solic across our
entrance, all straining and jostling to peer into the window of the shop next door.
19
I climbed up on the iron gate which closed the yard at night, and saw over the
people’s heads a great expanse of empty street to the east, while the west was
packed with every vehicle which had passed that way since the Lieabout’s
sensational find.
It was because I was prevented by the angle of the wall from seeing my two police
friends descending into the shop through the skylight that I was an exception from
the rest of the crowd, and did not have my attention diverted from the excitement
over the way.
I saw the long black car pull up outside the jeweller’s shop and I saw the three men
spring out of it. It was not until the crash of broken glass reached me, as the brick
went through the window, that I realised that anything untoward was afoot.
The rest happened so quickly that I hardly followed it. I had a confused impression of
flying figures, something flashing in the autumn sun and then of the black car sliding
round like a speedboat in the broad road and flying away with smooth acceleration.
In a moment it had gone completely. I could not even see which way it turned at the
end of the street. Nothing but the ragged hole in window, with a scared assistant’s
face peering through it, remained to show that the raid had occurred.
At that moment the first policemen to get down into the empty shop must have pulled
away the coat, revealed the neatly arranged sacks and distempter tins beneath, and
kicked the old boot away angrily, for the crowd suddenly became aware of the other
sensation, and surged off across the road to gape anew.
It was extraordinarily neat. The whole thing had been done in one of the most
important streets without anyone being able to give a clear picture of any of the men
involved.
We heard all about the robbery from the tobacconist on the corner.
Ten thousand pounds’ worth of valuables had been snatched, he said, including the
gold state salt-cellar which an ancient and worshipful company was presenting to a
foreign rorayl bridegroom, and which had been on view there for a few privileged
days. A little small stuff went, too, he said; a couple of trays of rings and several
oddments.
I never saw the Lieabout again. Foolishly I supposed that after making such an ass of
himself by his false alarm, he did not care to show his face in the neighbourhood and
had moved off to another corner of the town.
A parcel came a week later. I found it in the letter box one night when we came in
from a show.
It was the topaz brooch. It lay upon a mat of cottonwool, and there was a note with it
written in a neat, educated hand. The message was brief and only too enlightening.
“Very many thanks for your valuable assistance,” it ran. “Congratulate you. Very
gratefully yours.”
There was no signature and the package had not been through the post.
So you see the problem: What should Mrs A. do now?
20
“Forever After” (1960), Jim Thompson
It was a few minutes before five o'clock when Ardis Clinton unlocked the rear door of
her apartment, and admitted her lover. He was a cow-eyed young man with a wild
mass of curly black hair. He worked as a dishwasher at Joe's Diner, which was
directly across the alley.
They embraced passionately. Her body pressed against the meat cleaver, concealed
inside his shirt, and Ardis shivered with delicious anticipation. Very soon now, it
would all be over. That stupid ox, her husband, would be dead. He and his stupid
cracks--all the dullness and boredom would be gone forever. And with the twenty
thousand insurance money, ten thousand dollars double-indemnity...
"We're going to be so happy, Tony," she whispered. "You'll have your own place, a
real swank little restaurant with what they call one of those intimate bars. And you'll
just manage it, just kind of saunter around in a dress suit, and--"
"And we'll live happily ever after," Tony said. "Just me and you, baby, walking down
life's highway together."
Ardis let out a gasp. She shoved him away from her, glaring up into his handsome
empty face. "Don't!" she snapped. "Don't say things like that! I've told you and told
you not to do it, and if I have to tell you again. I'll--!"
"But what'd I say?" he protested. "I didn't say nothin'."
"Well..." She got control of herself, forcing a smile. "Never mind, darling. You haven't
had any opportunities and we've never really had a chance to know each other, so-so never mind. Things will be different after we're married." She patted his cheek,
kissed him again. "You got away from the diner, all right? No one saw you leave?"
"Huh-uh. I already took the stuff up to the steam-table for Joe, and the waitress was
up front too, y'know, filling the sugar bowls and the salt and pepper shakers like she
always does just before dinner. And--"
"Good. Now, suppose someone comes back to the kitchen and finds out you're not
there. What's your story going to be?"
"Well ... I was out in the alley dumping some garbage. I mean--" he corrected himself
hastily, "maybe I was. Or maybe I was down in the basement, getting some supplies.
Or maybe I was in the john--the lavatory, I mean--or--"
"Fine," Ardis said approvingly. "You don't say where you were, so they can't prove
you weren't there. You just don't remember where you were, understand, darling?
You might have been any number of places."
Tony nodded. Looking over her shoulder into the bedroom, he frowned worriedly.
"Why'd you do that now, honey? I know this has got to look like a robbery. But tearin'
up the room now, before he gets here--"
"There won't be time afterwards. Don't worry, Tony. I'll keep the door closed."
"But he might open it and look in. And if he sees all them dresser drawers dumped
around, and--"
"He won't. He won't look into the bedroom. I know exactly what he'll do, exactly what
he'll say, the same things that he's always done and said ever since we've been
married. All the stupid, maddening, dull, tiresome--!" She broke off abruptly,
conscious that her voice was rising. "Well, forget it," she said, forcing another smile.
"He won't give us any trouble."
"Whatever you say," "Tony nodded docilely. "If you say so, that's the way it is, Ardis,"
"But there'll be trouble -from the cops. I know I've already warned you about it,
darling. But it'll be pretty bad, worse than anything you've ever gone through. They
won't have any proof, but they're bound to be suspicious, and if you ever start talking,
admitting anything-"
21
I won't. They won't get anything out of me."
"You're sure? They 'll try to trick you. They'll probably tell you that I've confessed.
They may even slap you around. So if you're not absolutely sure..."
"They won't get anything out of me," he repeated solidly, I won't talk."
And studying him, Ardis knew that he wouldn't.
She led the way down the hall to the bathroom. He parted the shower curtains, and
stepped into the tub. Drawing a pair of gloves from his pocket, he pulled them on to
his hands. Awkwardly, he fumbled the meat cleaver from beneath his shirt.
"Ardis. Uh-look, honey,"
"Yes?"
"Do I have to hit you? Couldn't I just may be give you a little shove, or-"
"No darling," she said gently. "You have to hit me. This is supposed to be robbery. If
you killed my husband without doing anything to me, well, you know how it would
look.
"But I never hit no woman - any woman - before. I might hit you too hard, and-"
"Tony!"
"Well, all right," he said sullenly. "I don't like it, but all right."
Ardis murmured soothing endearments. Then, brushing his lips quickly with her own,
she returned to the living room. It was a quarter after five minutes - but exactly -until
her husband, Bill would come home. Closing the bedroom door, she lay down on the
lounge. Her negligee fell open, and she left it that way, grinning meanly as she
studied the curving length of her thighs.
Give the dope a treat for a change, she thought. Let him get one lát good look before
he gets his.
Her expression changed. Wearily, resentfully, she pulled the material of the negligee
over her legs. Because of course, Bill would never notice. She could wear a ring in
her nose, paint a bull's-eye around her navel, and he'd never notice.
If he had ever noticed, just once paid her a pretty compliment...
If he had ever done anything different, ever said or done anything different at all even the teensiest little bit..
But he hadn't. Maybe he couldn't. So what else could she do but what she was
doing? She could get a divorce, sure, but that was all she'd get. No money, nothing
with which to build a new life. Nothing to make up for those fifteen years of slowly
being driven mad.
It's his own fault, she thought bitterly, I can't take any more if I had to put up with him
for just one more night, even one more hour...!"
She heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. Then, a key turned in the doorlatch, and
Bill came in. He was a master machinist, a solidly built man of about forty-five. The
old-fashioned gold trimmed glasses on his pudgy nose gave him a look of owlish
solemnity.
"Well," he said, setting down his lunch bucket. "Another day, another dollar."
Ardis grimaced. He plodded across to the lounge, stooped, and gave a half-hearted
peck on the check.
"Long time no see," he said, "What we havin' for supper?"
Ardis gritted her teeth. It shouldn't matter, now, in a few minutes it would all be over.
Yet somehow it did matter. He was as maddening to her as he had ever been.
"Bill..." She managed a seductive smile, slowly drawing the negligee apart. "How do I
look, Bill?"
"Okay," he yawned. "Got a little hole in your drawers, though. What'd you say we
havin' for supper?"
"Sounds good. We got any hot water?"
22
Ardis sucked in her breath. She let it out again in a kind of infuriated moan. "Of
course, we've got hot water!. Don't we always have? Well, don't we? Why do you
have to ask every night?"
"So what's to get excited about? he shrugged. "Well, guess I'll go splash the
chassis."
He plodded off down the hall. Ardis heard the bathroom door open, and close. She
got up, stood waiting by the telephone. The door banged open again, and Tony came
racing up the hall.
He had washed off the cleaver. While he hastily tucked it back inside his shirt, Ardis
dialled the operator. "Help" she cried weakly.
"Help...police...murder!"
She let the receiver drop to the floor, spoke to Tony in a whisper.
"He's dead? You're sure of it?"
"Yeah,yeah, sure I'm sure. What do you thinhk?"
"All right. Now, there's just one more thing..."
"I can't, Ardis. I don't want to,I-"
"Hit me,"she commanded, and thrust out her chin. "Tony, I said to hit me!"
He hit her. A thousand stars blazed through her brain, and disappeared. And she
crumpled silently to the floor.
...When she regained consciousness, she was lying on the lounge. A heavy-set man,
a detective obviously, was seated at her side, and a white-jacketed young man with a
stethoscope draped around his neck hovered nearby.
She had never felt better in her life. Even the lower part of her face, where Tony had
smashed her, was suprisingly free of pain. Still, because it was what she should do,
she moaned softly; spoke in a weak hazy voice.
"Where am I? she said. "What happened?"
"Lieutenant Powers," the detective said. "Suppose you tell me what happened, Mrs
Clinton."
"I...I don't remember. I mean, well, my husband had just come home, and gone back
to the bathroom. And there was a knock on the door, and I supposed it was the
paper-boy or someone like that. So-"
"You opened the door, and he rushed in and slugged you, right? Then what
happened?"
"Well, then he rushed into the bedroom and started searching it. Yanking out the
dresser drawers, and-"
"What was he searching for, Mrs Clinton? You don't have any considerable amount
of money around, do you? Or any jewellery aside from what you're wearing? And it
wasn't your husband's payday, was it?"
"Well, no. But-"
"Yes?"
"I don't know. May be he was crazy. All I know is what he did."
"I see. He must have made quite a racket, seems to me. How come your husband
didn't hear it?
"He couldn't have. He had the shower running, and-"
She caught herself, fear constricting her throat. Lieutenant Powers grinned grimly.
"Missed a bet, huh,Mrs Clinton?"
"I-I don't know what you're-"
"Come off of it! tThe bathtub's dry as an oven. The shower was never turned on, and
you know, why it wasn't. Because there was a guy standing inside of it."
"B-but-I don't know anything I was unconscious, and-"
"Then, how do you know what happened? How do you know this guy went into the
23
bedroom and started tearing it apart? And how did you make that telephone call?"
"Well, I wasn't completely unconscious. I sort of knew what was going on without
really-"
"Now, you listen to me," he said harshly, "You made that fake call of yours-yes, I said
fake-to the operator at twenty-three minutes after five. There happened to be a prowl
car right here in the neighbourhood, so two minutes later, at five-twenty-five, there
were cops here in your apartment. You were unconscious then, more than an hour
ago. You've been unconscious until just now."
Ardis's brain whirled. Then it cleared suddenly, and a great calm over her.
"I don't see quite what you're hinting at, lieutenant. If you're saying that I was
confused, mixed up - that I must have dreamed or imagined some of the things I told
you - I'll admit it."
"You know what I'm saying!" I'm saying that no guy could have got in and out of this
place, and done what this one did in any two minutes!"
"Then the telephone operator must have been mistaken about the time," Ardis said
brightly. "I don't know how else to explain it."
Powers grunted. He said he could give her a better explanation - and he gave it to
her. The right one. Ardis listened to it placidly, murmuring polite objections.
"That's ridiculous, lieutenant. Regardless of any gossip you may have heard, I don't
know this, uh, Tony person. And I most certainly did not plot with him or anyone else
to kill my husband. Why-"
"He says you did. We got a signed confession from him."
"Have you?" But of course they didn't have. They might have found out about Tony,
but he would never have talked. That hardly proves anything, does it?"
"Now you listen to me, Mrs Clinton! May be you think that-"
"How is my husband, anyway? I do hope he wasn't seriously hurt."
"How is he?" the lieutenant snarled. "How would he be after gettin'worked over with-"
He broke off, his eyes flickering. "As a matter of fact" he said heavily, " he's going to
be all right. He was pretty badly injured, but he was to give us a statement and-"
"I'm so glad. But why are you questioning me, then?" It was another trick. Bill had to
be dead. "If he gave you a statement, then you must know that everything happened
just like I said."
She waited, looked at him quizzically. Powers scowled, his stern face wrinkling with
exasperation.
"All right," he said, at last. "All right, Mrs Clinton. Your husband is dead. We don't
have any statement from him, and we don't have any confession from Tony."
"Yes?"
"But we know you're guilty, and you know that you are. And you'd better get if off your
conscience while you still can"
"While I still can?"
"Doc" - Powers jerked his head at the doctor. At the man, that is who appeared to be
a doctor. "Lay it on the line, doc. Tell her that her boy friend hit her a little too hard."
The man came forward hesitantly. He said, I'm sorry, Mrs Clinton. You have a -uhyou've sustained a very serious injury."
"Have I?" Ardis smiled. "I feel fine."
"I don't think," the doctor said judiciously, "that that's quite true. What you mean is
that you don't feel anything at all. You couldn't. You see, with an injury such as yours"
"Get out," Ardis said. "Both of you get out."
"Please, Mrs Clinton. Believe me, this isn't a trick. I haven't wanted to alarm you, but"
24
"And you haven't," she said, "You haven't scared me even a little bit, mister. Now
clear out!"
She closed her eyes, kept them closed firmly. When, at last, she reopened them,
Powers and the doctor - if he really had been a doctor -were gone. And the
room was in darkness.
She lay smiling to herself, congratulating herself. In the corridor outside, she heard
heavy footsteps approaching; and she tensed for a moment. Then, remembering,
she relaxed again.
Not Bill, of course. She was through with that jerk forever. He'd driven her half out of
mind, got her to the point where she couldn't have taken another minute of him if her
life depended on it. But now..
The footsteps stopped in front of her door. A key turned in the lock, the door opened
and closed.
There was a clatter of the lunchpail being set down; then a familiar voice maddeningly familiar words:
"Well, Another day, another dollars."
Ardis'mouth tightened, it twisted slowly, in a malicious grin. So they hadn't given up
yet! They were pulling this one last trick. Well, let them; she'd play along with the
gag.
The man plodded across the room, stooped, and gave her a half-hearted peck on the
cheek. "Long time no see," he said. "What we havin'for supper?"
"Bill..." Ardis said. "How do I look, Bill?"
"Okay. Got your lipstick smeared though. What'd you say we was having for
supper?"
"Stewed owls! Now look, mister, I don't know who you-"
"Sounds good. We got any hot water?"
"Of course, we've got hot water! Don't we always have? Why do you always have to
ask if- if-"
She couldn't go through with it. Even as a gag -even someone who merely sounded
and acted like he did - it was too much to bear.
"Y-you get out of here!" She quavered. "I don't have to stand for this! I c-can't stand
it! I did it for fifteen years, and-"
"So what's to get excited about? he said. "Well., guess I'll go splash the chassis."
"Stpo it! STOP IT!" Her scream filled the room...silent screams ripping through
silence. "He's-you're dead! I know you are! You're dead, and I don't have to put up
with you for another minute. And-and-!"
"Woudn't take no bets on that if I was you," he said mildly. :Not with a broken neck
like yours."
He trugged off toward the bathroom, wherever the bathroom is in Eternity.
25
Romance/Love
Genre Conventions
We get to fall in love when we read or watch a love story and experience all of the
sturm and drang (storm and urge) of love…but at a safe distance. We don’t actually
have to put ourselves in any vulnerable position. We get to vicariously experience
love without risk.
The words that we use to describe love indicate just what a powerful emotion it is.
We “fall” in love – implying it is something outside our control. The heart, which keeps
us alive, is used as the symbol of love. We describe someone who evokes a
passionate feeling as a “heart-throb” and of course, when a relationship ends we are
said to be “heartbroken”, as though life itself may not continue.
Although love is a human condition which people have always experienced over the
centuries, the expression of that love is strictly limited by the rules and culture of the
period. People have not always been free to fall in love with anyone they chose, but
have been restricted by considerations of social class, money, family and religion.
We experience the feeling of romance when we enjoy a love story, the butterfly in the
stomach churn when we are attracted to another person.
So how do writers ensure that they deliver this emotional catharsis? By making sure
they have these ten elements in their love stories, they’ll give the reader the best
possible environment to fall in love with their lead characters. It’s incredibly effective.
Literary alchemy.
1. The Rival: There must be a competing force for the affections of one or both
characters. Without rivals, there is no possibility for Crisis (if there is no
alternative choice how do you have a best bad one? or an irreconcilable good
one?) Sometimes a Rival isn’t flesh and blood.
2. Moral Weight: This is the baked in INTERNAL GENRE to the best love
stories. The idea is this… If the lovers cannot elevate themselves morally, they
will not be able to find authentic love. That is, they must have a worldview shift
that raises their moral fiber. Love requires self-reflection and change. Sweet
talk and roses mean nothing without moral elevation.
26
3. Helpers: There are those in favor of the love match who help the two come
together.
4. Hinderers: There are those who are not in favor of the love match who work
to destroy the match.
5. Gender Divide: Distinct differences in the ways the two lovers view love and
its responsibilities must be in play. These do not have to be traditional gender
roles, they may be reversed or they may involve non-binary characters.
6. External Need: One or both of the lovers have to have external pressures on
them to find a mate quickly.
7. Forces at Play Beyond the Couple’s Control: Social convention often fits
the bill here. The woman, or the man, is from the other side of the tracks…
8. Forces at Play Within the Couple’s Control: This usually goes hand in hand
with the moral weight convention. One or both of the lovers has to get out of
their own way and change their behavior and worldview before they’ll be
rewarded with authentic love.
9. Rituals: The lovers develop little things that they only do with one another.
And last but not least, there must be
10. Secrets: There are four varieties, a.) Secrets society keeps from the couple,
b.) Secrets the couple keeps from society, c.) Secrets the couple keeps from
one another d.) Secrets one of the couple keeps from himself/herself.
Not delivering conventions with innovative verve will alienate your audience. It will
make them feel as if something was missing in the telling and for that very reason the
story will not satisfy their expectations.
They just won’t get the emotional oomph they’d hoped for when they gave your story
a chance. And we all know what happens when a story fails to meet expectations…
Adapted from https://stevenpressfield.com/2017/02/15440/
27
“Malachi’s Cove” (1864), Anthony Trollope
On the northern coast of Cornwall, between Tintagel and Bossiney, down on the very
margin of the sea, there lived not long since an old man who got his living by saving
seaweed from the waves, and selling it for manure. The cliffs there are bold and fine,
and the sea beats in upon them from the north with a grand violence. I doubt whether
it be not the finest morsel of cliff scenery in England, though it is beaten by many
portions of the west coast of Ireland, and perhaps also by spots in Wales and
Scotland. Cliffs should be nearly precipitous, they should be broken in their outlines,
and should barely admit here and there of an insecure passage from their summit to
the sand at their feet. The sea should come, if not up to them, at least very near to
them, and then, above all things, the water below them should be blue, and not of
that dead leaden colour which is so familiar to us in England. At Tintagel all these
requisites are there, except that bright blue colour which is so lovely. But the cliffs
themselves are bold and well broken, and the margin of sand at high water is very
narrow,—so narrow that at spring-tides there is barely a footing there.
Close upon this margin was the cottage or hovel of Malachi Trenglos, the old man of
whom I have spoken. But Malachi, or old Glos, as he was commonly called by the
people around him, had not built his house absolutely upon the sand. There was a
fissure in the rock so great that at the top it formed a narrow ravine, and so complete
from the summit to the base that it afforded an opening for a steep and rugged track
from the top of the rock to the bottom. This fissure was so wide at the bottom that it
had afforded space for Trenglos to fix his habitation on a foundation of rock, and here
he had lived for many years. It was told of him that in the early days of his trade he
had always carried the weed in a basket on his back to the top, but latterly he had
been possessed of a donkey, which had been trained to go up and down the steep
track with a single pannier over his loins, for the rocks would not admit of panniers
hanging by his side; and for this assistant he had built a shed adjoining his own, and
almost as large as that in which he himself resided.
But, as years went on, old Glos procured other assistance than that of the donkey,
or, as I should rather say, Providence supplied him with other help; and, indeed, had
it not been so, the old man must have given up his cabin and his independence and
gone into the workhouse at Camelford. For rheumatism had afflicted him, old age
had bowed him till he was nearly double, and by degrees he became unable to
attend the donkey on its upward passage to the world above, or even to assist in
rescuing the coveted weed from the waves.
At the time to which our story refers Trenglos had not been up the cliff for twelve
months, and for the last six months he had done nothing towards the furtherance of
his trade, except to take the money and keep it, if any of it was kept, and occasionally
to shake down a bundle of fodder for the donkey. The real work of the business was
done altogether by Mahala Trenglos, his granddaughter.
Mally Trenglos was known to all the farmers round the coast, and to all the small
tradespeople in Camelford. She was a wild-looking, almost unearthly creature, with
wild-flowing, black, uncombed hair, small in stature, with small hands and bright
black eyes; but people said that she was very strong, and the children around
declared that she worked day and night and knew nothing of fatigue. As to her age
there were many doubts. Some said she was ten, and others five-and-twenty, but the
reader may be allowed to know that at this time she had in truth passed her twentieth
birthday. The old people spoke well of Mally, because she was so good to her
grandfather; and it was said of her that though she carried to him a little gin and
tobacco almost daily, she bought nothing for herself—and as to the gin, no one who
28
looked at her would accuse her of meddling with that. But she had no friends and but
few acquaint- ances among people of her own age. They said that she was fierce
and ill-natured, that she had not a good word for any one, and that she was,
complete at all points, a thorough little vixen. The young men did not care for her; for,
as regarded dress, all days were alike with her. She never made herself smart on
Sundays. She was generally without stockings, and seemed to care not at all to
exercise any of those feminine attractions which might have been hers had she
studied to attain them. All days were the same to her in regard to dress; and, indeed,
till lately, all days had, I fear, been the same to her in other respects. Old Malachi had
never been seen inside a place of worship since he had taken to live under the cliff.
But within the last two years Mally had submitted herself to the teaching of the
clergyman at Tintagel, and had appeared at church on Sundays, if not absolutely with
punctuality, at any rate so often that no one who knew the peculiarity of her
residence was disposed to quarrel with her on that subject. But she made no
difference in her dress on these occasions. She took her place on a low stone seat
just inside the church door, clothed as usual in her thick red serge petticoat and loose
brown serge jacket, such being the apparel which she had found to be best adapted
for her hard and perilous work among the waters. She had pleaded to the clergyman
when he attacked her on the subject of church attendance with vigour that she had
got no church-going clothes. He had explained to her that she would be received
there without distinction to her clothing. Mally had taken him at his word, and had
gone, with a courage which certainly deserved admiration, though I doubt whether
there was not mingled with it an obstinacy which was less admirable.
For people said that old Glos was rich, and that Mally might have proper clothes if
she chose to buy them. Mr Polwarth, the clergyman, who, as the old man could not
come to him, went down the rocks to the old man, did make some hint on the matter
in Mally’s absence. But old Glos, who had been patient with him on other matters,
turned upon him so angrily when he made an allusion to money, that Mr Polwarth
found himself obliged to give that matter up, and Mally continued to sit upon the
stone bench in her short serge petticoat, with her long hair streaming down her face.
She did so far sacrifice to decency as on such occasions to tie up her black hair with
an old shoestring. So tied it would remain through the Monday and Tuesday, but by
Wednesday afternoon Mally’s hair had generally managed to escape.
As to Mally’s indefatigable industry there could be no manner of doubt, for the
quantity of seaweed which she and the donkey amassed between them was very
surprising. old Glos, it was declared, had never collected half what Mally gathered
together; but then the article was becoming cheaper, and it was necessary that the
exertion should be greater. So Mally and the donkey toiled and toiled, and the
seaweed came up in heaps which surprised those who looked at her little hands and
light form. Was there not some one who helped her at nights, some fairy, or demon,
or the like? Mally was so snappish in her answers to people that she had no right to
be surprised if ill-natured things were said of her.
No one ever heard Mally Trenglos complain of her work, but about this time she was
heard to make great and loud complaints of the treatment she received from some of
her neighbours. It was known that she went with her plaints to Mr Polwarth; and
when he could not help her, or did not give her such instant help as she needed, she
went—ah, so foolishly! to the office of a certain attorney at Camelford, who was not
likely to prove himself a better friend than Mr Polwarth.
Now the nature of her injury was as follows. The place in which she collected her
seaweed was a little cove;—the people had come to call it Malachi’s Cove from the
name of the old man who lived there;— which was so formed, that the margin of the
29
sea therein could only be reached by the passage from the top down to Trenglos’s
hut. The breadth of the cove when the sea was out might perhaps be two hundred
yards, and on each side the rocks ran out in such a way that both from north and
south the domain of Trenglos was guarded from intruders. And this locality had been
well chosen for its intended purpose.
There was a rush of the sea into the cove, which carried there large, drifting masses
of seaweed, leaving them among the rocks when the tide was out. During the
equinoctial winds of the spring and autumn the supply would never fail; and even
when the sea was calm, the long, soft, salt-bedewed, trailing masses of the weed,
could be gathered there when they could not be found elsewhere for miles along the
coast. The task of getting the weed from the breakers was often difficult and
dangerous,—so difficult that much of it was left to be carried away by the next
incoming tide.
Mally doubtless did not gather half the crop that was there at her feet. What was
taken by the returning waves she did not regret; but when interlopers came upon her
cove, and gathered her wealth,—her grandfather’s wealth, beneath her eyes, then
her heart was broken. It was this interloping, this intrusion, that drove poor Mally to
the Camelford attorney. But, alas, though the Camelford attorney took Mally’s money,
he could do nothing for her, and her heart was broken!
She had an idea, in which no doubt her grandfather shared, that the path to the cove
was, at any rate, their property. When she was told that the cove, and sea running
into the cove, were not the freeholds of her grandfather, she understood that the
statement might be true. But what then as to the use of the path? Who had made the
path what it was? Had she not painfully, wearily, with exceeding toil, carried up bits of
rock with her own little hands, that her grandfather’s donkey might have footing for
his feet? Had she not scraped together crumbs of earth along the face of the cliff that
she might make easier to the animal the track of that rugged way? And now, when
she saw big farmer’s lads coming down with other donkeys,—and, indeed, there was
one who came with a pony; no boy, but a young man, old enough to know better than
rob a poor old man and a young girl,—she reviled the whole human race, and swore
that the Camelford attorney was a fool.
Any attempt to explain to her that there was still weed enough for her was worse than
useless. Was it not all hers and his, or, at any rate, was not the sole way to it his and
hers? And was not her trade stopped and impeded? Had she not been forced to back
her laden donkey down, twenty yards she said, but it had, in truth, been five, because
Farmer Gunliffe’s son had been in the way with his thieving pony? Farmer Gunliffe
had wanted to buy her weed at his own price, and because she had refused he had
set on his thieving son to destroy her in this wicked way.
‘I’ll hamstring the beast the next time as he’s down here!’ said Mally to old Glos, while
the angry fire literally streamed from her eyes.
Farmer Gunliffe’s small homestead,—he held about fifty acres of land, was close by
the village of Tintagel, and not a mile from the cliff. The sea-wrack, as they call it,
was pretty well the only manure within his reach, and no doubt he thought it hard that
he should be kept from using it by Mally Trenglos and her obstinacy.
‘There’s heaps of other coves, Barry,’ said Mally to Barty Gunliffe, the farmer’s son.
‘But none so nigh, Mally, nor yet none that fills ‘emselves as this place.’
Then he explained to her that he would not take theweed that came up close to hand.
He was bigger than she was, and stronger, and would get it from the outer rocks,
with which she never meddled. Then, with scorn in her eye, she swore that she could
get it where he durst not venture, and repeated her threat of hamstringing the pony.
30
Barty laughed at her wrath, jeered her because of her wild hair, and called her a
mermaid.
‘I’ll mermaid you!’ she cried. ‘Mermaid, indeed! I wouldn’t be a man to come and rob
a poor girl and an old cripple. But you’re no man, Barty Gunliffe! You’re not half a
man.’
Nevertheless, Bartholomew Gunliffe was a very fine young fellow as far as the eye
went. He was about five feet eight inches high, with strong arms and legs, with light
curly brown hair and blue eyes. His father was but in a small way as a farmer, but,
nevertheless, Barry Gunliffe was well thought of among the girls around. Everybody
liked Barty,—excepting only Mally Trenglos, and she hated him like poison.
Barry, when he was asked why so good-natured a lad as he persecuted a poor girl
and an old man, threw himself upon the justice of the thing. It wouldn’t do at all,
according to his view, that any single person should take upon himself to own that
which God Almighty sent as the common property of all. He would do Mally no harm,
and so he had told her. But Mally was a vixen,—a wicked little vixen; and she must
be taught to have a civil tongue in her head. When once Mally would speak him civil
as he went for weed, he would get his father to pay the old man some sort of toll for
the use of the path. ‘Speak him civil?’ said Mally. ‘Never; not while I have a tongue in
my mouth!’ And I fear old Glos encouraged her rather than otherwise in her view of
the matter.
But her grandfather did not encourage her to hamstring the pony. Hamstringing a
pony would be a serious thing, and old Glos thought it might be very awkward for
both of them if Mally were put into prison. He suggested, therefore, that all manner of
impediments should be put in the way of the pony’s feet, surmising that the welltrained donkey might be able to work in spite of them. And Barry Gunliffe, on his next
descent, did find the passage very awkward when he came near to Malachi’s hut, but
he made his way down, and poor Mally saw the lumps of rock at which she had
laboured so hard pushed on one side or rolled out of the way with a steady
persistency of injury towards herself that almost drove her frantic.
‘Well, Barry, you’re a nice boy,’ said old Glos, sitting in the doorway of the hut, as he
watched the intruder.
‘I ain’t a doing no harm to none as doesn’t harm me,’ said Barry. ‘The sea’s free to
all, Malachi.’
‘And the sky’s free to all, but I musn’t get up on the top of your big barn to look at it,’
said Mally, who was standing among the rocks with a long hook in her hand. The
long hook was the tool with which she worked in dragging the weed from the waves.
‘But you ain’t got no justice, nor yet no sperrit, or you wouldn’t come here to vex an
old man like he.’
‘I didn’t want to vex him, nor yet to vex you, Mally. You let me be for a while, and we’ll
be friends yet.’
‘Friends!’ exclaimed Mally. ‘Who’d have the likes of you for a friend? What are you
moving them stones for? Them stones belongs to grandfather.’ And in her wrath she
made a movement as though she were going to fly at him.
‘Let him be, Mally,’ said the old man; ‘let him be. He’ll get his punishment. He’ll come
to he drowned some day if he comes down here when the wind is in shore.’
‘That he may be drowned then!’ said Mally, in her anger. ‘If he was in the big hole
there among the rocks, and the sea running in at half-tide, I wouldn’t lift a hand to
help him out.’
‘Yes, you would, Mally; you’d fish me up with your hook like a big stick of seaweed.’
She turned from him with scorn as he said this, and went into the hut. It was time for
her to get ready for her work, and one of the great injuries done her lay in this,—that
31
such a one as Barry Gunliffe should come and look at her during her toil among the
breakers.
It was an afternoon in April, and the hour was something after four o’clock. There had
been a heavy wind from the north-west all the morning, with gusts of rain, and the
sea-gulls had been in and out of the cove all the day, which was a sure sign to Mally
that the incoming tide would cover the rocks with weed.
The quick waves were now returning with wonderful celerity over the low reefs, and
the time had come at which the treasure must be seized, if it was to be garnered on
that day. By seven o’clock it would be growing dark, at nine it would be high water,
and before daylight the crop would be carried out again if not collected. All this Mally
understood very well, and some of this Barry was beginning to understand also.
As Mally came down with her bare feet, bearing her long hook in her hand, she saw
Barry’s pony standing patiently on the sand, and in her heart she longed to attack the
brute. Barry at this moment, with a common three-pronged fork in his hand, was
standing down on a large rock, gazing forth towards the waters. He had declared that
he would gather the weed only at places which were inaccessible to Mally, and he
was looking out that he might settle where he would begin.
‘Let ‘un be, let ‘un be,’ shouted the old man to Mally, as he saw her take a step
towards the beast, which she hated almost as much as she hated the man.
Hearing her grandfather’s voice through the wind, she desisted from her purpose, if
any purpose she had had, and went forth to her work. As she passed down the cove,
and scrambled in among the rocks, she saw Barry still standing on his perch; out
beyond, the white-curling waves were cresting and breaking themselves with
violence, and the wind was howling among the caverns and abutments of the cliff.
Every now and then there came a squall of rain, and though there was sufficient light,
the heavens were black with clouds. A scene more beautiful might hardly be found by
those who love the glories of the coast. The light for such objects was perfect.
Nothing could exceed the grandeur of the colours,—the blue of the open sea, the
white of the breaking waves, the yellow sands, or the streaks of red and brown which
gave such richness to the cliff.
But neither Mally nor Barry were thinking of such things as these. Indeed they were
hardly thinking of their trade after its ordinary forms. Barry was meditating how he
might best accomplish his purpose of working beyond the reach of Mally’s feminine
powers, and Mally was resolving that wherever Barry went she would go farther.
And, in many respects, Mally had the advantage. She knew every rock in the spot,
and was sure of those which gave a good foothold, and sure also of those which did
not. And then her activity had been made perfect by practice for the purpose to which
it was to be devoted. Barry, no doubt, was stronger than she, and quite as active. But
Barry could not jump among the waves from one stone to another as she could do,
nor was he as yet able to get aid in his work from the very force of the water as she
could get it. She had been hunting seaweed in that cove since she had been an
urchin of six years old, and she knew every hole and corner and every spot of
vantage. The waves were her friends, and she could use them. She could measure
their strength, and knew when and where it would cease.
Mally was great down in the salt pools of her own cove,—great, and very fearless. As
she watched Barry make his way forward from rock to rock, she told herself,
gleefully, that he was going astray. The curl of the wind as it blew into the cove would
not carry the weed up to the northern buttresses of the cove; and then there was the
great hole just there,—the great hole of which she had spoken when she wished him
evil.
32
And now she went to work, hooking up the dishevelled hairs of the ocean, and
landing many a cargo on the extreme margin of the sand, from whence she would be
able in the evening to drag it back before the invading waters would return to reclaim
the spoil.
And on his side also Barry made his heap up against the northern buttresses of
which I have spoken. Barry’s heap became big and still bigger, so that he knew, let
the pony work as he might, he could not take it all up that evening. But still it was not
as large as Mally’s heap. Mally’s hook was better than his fork, and Mally’s skill was
better than his strength. And when he failed in some haul Mally would jeer him with a
wild, weird laughter, and shriek to him through the wind that he was not half a man.
At first he answered her with laughing words, but before long, as she boasted of her
success and pointed to his failure, he became angry, and then he answered her no
more. He became angry with himself, in that he missed so much of the plunder
before him.
The broken sea was full of the long straggling growth which the waves had torn up
from the bottom of the ocean, but the masses were carried past him, away from
him,—nay, once or twice over him; and then Mally’s weird voice would sound in his
ear, jeering him. The gloom among the rocks was now becoming thicker and thicker,
the tide was beating in with increased strength, and the gusts of wind came with
quicker and greater violence. But still he worked on. While Mally worked he would
work, and he would work for some time after she was driven in. He would not be
beaten by a girl.
The great hole was now full of water, but of water which seemed to be boiling as
though in a pot. And the pot was full of floating masses,— large treasures of
seaweed which were thrown to and fro upon its surface, but lying there so thick that
one would seem almost able to rest upon it without sinking.
Mally knew well how useless it was to attempt to rescue aught from the fury of that
boiling caldron. The hole went in under the rocks, and the side of it towards the shore
lay high, slippery, and steep. The hole, even at low water, was never empty; and
Mally believed that there was no bottom to it. Fish thrown in there could escape out
to the ocean, miles away,—so Mally in her softer moods would tell the visitors to the
cove. She knew the hole well. Poulnadioul she was accustomed to call it; which was
supposed, when translated, to mean that this was the hole of the Evil One. Never did
Mally attempt to make her own of weed which had found its way into that pot.
But Barry Gunliffe knew no better, and she watched him as he endeavoured to
steady himself on the treacherously slippery edge of the pool. He fixed himself there
and made a haul, with some small success. How he managed it she hardly knew, but
she stood still for a while watching him anxiously, and then she saw him slip. He
slipped, and recovered himself~—slipped again, and again recovered himself.
‘Barry, you fool!’ she screamed, ‘if you get yourself pitched in there, you’ll never
come out no more.’
Whether she simply wished to frighten him, or whether her heart relented and she
had thought of his danger with dismay, who shall say? She could not have told
herself. She hated him as much as ever,—but she could hardly have wished to see
him drowned before her eyes.
‘You go on, and don’t mind me,’ said he, speaking in a hoarse, angry tone.
‘Mind you!—who minds you?’ retorted the girl. And then she again prepared herself
for her work.
But as she went down over the rocks with her long hook balanced in her hands, she
suddenly heard a splash, and, turning quickly round, saw the body of her enemy
tumbling amidst the eddying waves in the pool. The tide had now come up so far that
33
every succeeding wave washed into it and over it from the side nearest to the sea,
and then ran down again back from the rocks, as the rolling wave receded, with a
noise like the fall of a cataract. And then, when the surplus water had retreated for a
moment, the surface of the pool would be partly calm, though the fretting bubbles
would still boil up and down, and there was ever a simmer on the surface, as though,
in truth, the caldron were heated. But this time of comparative rest was but a
moment, for the succeeding breaker would come up almost as soon as the foam of
the preceding one had gone, and then again the waters would be dashed upon the
rocks, and the sides would echo with the roar of the angry wave.
Instantly Mally hurried across to the edge of the pool, crouching down upon her
hands and knees for security as she did so. As a wave receded, Barry’s head and
face was carried round near to her, and she could see that his forehead was covered
with blood. Whether he were alive or dead she did not know. She had seen nothing
but his blood, and the light-coloured hair of his head lying amidst the foam. Then his
body was drawn along by the suction of the retreating wave; but the mass of water
that escaped was not on this occasion large enough to carry the man out with it.
Instantly Mally was at work with her hook, and getting it fixed into his coat, dragged
him towards the spot on which she was kneeling. During the half minute of repose
she got him so close that she could touch his shoulder. Straining herself down, laying
herself over the long bending handle of the hook, she strove to grasp him with her
right hand. But she could not do it; she could only touch him.
Then came the next breaker, forcing itself on with a roar, looking to Mally as though it
must certainly knock her from her resting-place, and destroy them both. But she had
nothing for it but to kneel, and hold by her hook.
What prayer passed through her mind at that moment for herself or for him, or for
that old man who was sitting unconsciously up at the cabin, who can say? The great
wave came and rushed over her as she lay almost prostrate, and when the water
was gone from her eyes, and the tumult of the foam, and the violence of the roaring
breaker had passed by her, she found herself at her length upon the rock, while his
body had been lifted up, free from her hook, and was lying upon the slippery ledge,
half in the water and half out of it. As she looked at him, in that instant, she could see
that his eyes were open and that he was struggling with his hands.
‘Hold by the hook, Barry,’ she cried, pushing the stick of it before him, while she
seized the collar of his coat in her hands.
Had he been her brother, her lover, her father she could not have clung to him with
more of the energy of despair. He did contrive to hold by the stick which she had
given him, and when the succeeding wave had passed by, he was still on the ledge.
In the next moment she was seated a yard or two above the hole, in comparative
safety, while Barry lay upon the rocks with his still bleeding head resting upon her
lap.
What could she do now? She could not carry him; and in fifteen minutes the sea
would be up
where she was sitting. He was quite insensible, and very pale, and the blood was
coming slowly,—very slowly,— from the wound on his forehead. Ever so gently she
put her hand upon his hair to move it back from his face; and then she bent over his
mouth to see if he breathed, and as she looked at him she knew that he was
beautiful.
What would she not give that he might live? Nothing now was so precious to her as
his life,—as this life which she had so far rescued from the waters. But what could
she do? Her grandfather could scarcely get himself down over the rocks, if indeed he
could succeed in doing so much as that. Could she drag the wounded man
34
backwards, if it were only a few feet, so that he might lie above the reach of the
waves till further assistance could be procured?
She set herself to work and she moved him, almost lifting him. As she did so she
wondered at her own strength, but she was very strong at that moment. Slowly,
tenderly, falling on the rocks herself so that he might fall on her, she got him back to
the margin of the sand, to a spot which the waters would not reach for the next two
hours.
Here her grandfather met them, having seen at last what had happened from the
door.
‘Dada,’ she said, ‘he fell into the pool yonder, and was battered against the rocks.
See there at his forehead.’
‘Mally, I’m thinking that he’s dead already,’ said old Glos, peering down over the
body. ‘No, dada; he is not dead; but mayhap he’s dying. But I’ll go at once up to the
farm.’ ‘Mally,’ said the old man, ‘look at his head. They’ll say we murdered him.’
‘Who’ll say so? Who’ll lie like that? Didn’t I pull him out of the hole?’
‘What matters that? His father’ll say we killed him.’
It was manifest to Mally that whatever any one might say hereafter, her present
course was plain before her. She must run up the path to Gunliffe’s farm and get
necessary assistance. If the world were as bad as her grandfather said, it would be
so bad that she would not care to live longer in it. But be that as it might, there was
no doubt as to what she must do now.
So away she went as fast as her naked feet could carry her up the cliff. When at the
top she looked round to see if any person might be within ken, but she saw no one.
So she ran with all her speed along the headland of the corn-field which led in the
direction of old Gunliffe’s house, and as she drew near to the homestead she saw
that Barry’s mother was leaning on the gate. As she approached she attempted to
call, but her breath failed her for any purpose of loud speech, so she ran on till she
was able to grasp Mrs Gunliffe by the arm.
‘Where’s himself?’ she said, holding her hand upon her beating heart that she might
husband her breath.
‘Who is it you mean?’ said Mrs Gunliffe, who participated in the family feud against
Trenglos and his granddaughter. ‘What does the girl clutch me for in that way?’
‘He’s dying then, that’s all.’
‘Who is dying? Is it old Malachi? If the old man’s bad, we’ll send some one down.’
‘It ain’t dada; it’s Barry! Where’s himself? where’s the master?’ But by this time Mrs
Gunliffe
was in an agony of despair, and was calling out for assistance lustily. Happily
Gunliffe, the father, was at hand, and with him a man from the neighbouring village.
‘Will you not send for the doctor?’ said Mally. ‘oh, man, you should send for the
doctor!’
Whether any orders were given for the doctor she did not know, but in a very few
minutes she was hurrying across the field again towards the path to the cove, and
Gunliffe with the other man and his wife were following her.
As Mally went along she recovered her voice, for their step was not so quick as hers,
and that which to them was a hurried movement, allowed her to get her breath again.
And as she went she tried to explain to the father what had happened, saying but
little, however, of her own doings in the matter. The wife hung behind listening,
exclaiming every now and again that her boy was killed, and then asking wild
questions as to his being yet alive. The father, as he went, said little. He was known
as a silent, sober man, well spoken of for diligence and general conduct, but
supposed to be stern and very hard when angered.
35
As they drew near to the top of the path the other man whispered something to him,
and then he turned round upon Mally and stopped her.
‘If he has come by his death between you, your blood shall be taken for his,’ said he.
Then the wife shrieked out that her child had been murdered, and Mally, looking
round into the faces of the three, saw that her grandfather’s words had come true.
They suspected her of having taken the life, in saving which she had nearly lost her
own.
She looked round at them with awe in her face, and then, without saying a word,
preceded them down the path. What had she to answer when such a charge as that
was made against her? If they chose to say that she pushed him into the pool and hit
him with her hook as he lay amidst the waters, how could she show that it was not
so?
Poor Mally knew little of the law of evidence, and it seemed to her that she was in
their hands. But as she went down the steep track with a hurried step,—a step so
quick that they could not keep up with her,— her heart was very full,—very full and
very high. She had striven for the man’s life as though he had been her brother. The
blood was yet not dry on her own legs and arms, where she had torn them in his
service. At one moment she had felt sure that she would die with him in that pool.
And now they said that she had murdered him! It may be that he was not dead, and
what would he say if ever he should speak again? Then she thought of that moment
when his eyes had opened, and he had seemed to see her. She had no fear for
herself, for her heart was very high. But it was full also,—full of scorn, disdain, and
wrath.
When she had reached the bottom, she stood close to the door of the hut waiting for
them, so that they might precede her to the other group, which was there in front of
them, at a little distance on the sand.
He is there, and dada is with him. Go and look at him,’ said Mally.
The father and mother ran on stumbling over the stones, but Mally remained behind
by the door of the hut.
Barry Gunliffe was lying on the sand where Mally had left him, and old Malachi
Trenglos was standing over him, resting himself with difficulty upon a stick.
‘Not a move he’s moved since she left him,’ said he; ‘not a move. I put his head on
the old rug as you see, and I tried ‘un with a drop of gin, but he wouldn’t take it,—he
wouldn’t take it.’
‘Oh, my boy! my boy!’ said the mother, throwing herself beside her son upon the
sand.
‘Haud your tongue, woman,’ said the father, kneeling down slowly by the lad’s head,
‘whimpering that way will do ‘un no good.’
Then having gazed for a minute or two upon the pale face beneath him, he looked up
sternly into that of Malachi Trenglos.
The old man hardly knew how to bear this terrible inquisition. ‘He would come,’ said
Malachi; ‘he brought it all upon hisself.’ ‘Who was it struck him?’ said the father.
‘Sure he struck hisseif, as hç fell among the breakers.’
‘Liar!’ said the father, looking up at the old man.
‘They have murdered him!—they have murdered him!’ shrieked the mother.
‘Haud your peace, woman!’ said the husband again. ‘They shall give us blood for
blood.’
Mally, leaning against the corner of the hovel, heard it all, but did not stir. They might
say what
they liked. They might make it out to be murder. They might drag her and her
grandfather to Camelford gaol, and then to Bodmin, and the gallows; but they could
36
not take from her the conscious feeling that was her own. She had done her best to
save him,—her very best. And she had saved him!
She remembered her threat to him before they had gone down on the rocks together,
and her evil wish. Those words had been very wicked; but since that she had risked
her life to save his. They might say what they pleased of her, and do what they
pleased. She knew what she knew.
Then the father raised his son’s head and shoulders in his arms, and called on the
others to assist him in carrying Barry towards the path. They raised him between
them carefully and tenderly, and lifted their burden on towards the spot at which
Mally was standing. She never moved, but watched them at
their work; and the old man followed them, hobbling after them with his crutch.
When they had reached the end of the hut she looked upon Barry’s face, and saw
that it was
very pale. There was no longer blood upon the forehead, but the great gash was to
be seen there plainly, with its jagged cut, and the skin livid and blue round the orifice.
His light brown hair was hanging back, as she had made it to hang when she had
gathered it with her hand after the big wave had passed over them. Ah, how beautiful
he was in Mally’s eyes with that pale face, and the sad scar upon his brow! She
turned her face away, that they might not see her tears; but she did not move, nor did
she speak.
But now, when they had passed the end of the hut, shuffling along with their burden,
she heard a sound which stirred her. She roused herself quickly from her leaning
posture, and stretched forth her head as though to listen; then she moved to follow
them. Yes, they had stopped at the bottom of the path, and had again laid the body
on the rocks. She heard that sound again, as of a long, long sigh, and then,
regardless of any of them, she ran to the wounded man’s head.
‘He is not dead,’ she said. ‘There; he is not dead.’
As she spoke Barry’s eyes opened, and he looked about him.
‘Barry, my boy, speak to me,’ said the mother.
Barty turned his face upon his mother, smiled, and then stared about him wildly.
‘How is it with thee, lad?’ said his father. Then Barry turned his face again to the
latter voice, and as he did so his eyes fell upon Mally. ‘Mally!’ he said, ‘Mally!’
It could have wanted nothing further to any of those present to teach them that,
according to Barry’s own view of the case, Mally had not been his enemy; and, in
truth, Mally herself wanted no further triumph. That word had vindicated her, and she
withdrew back to the hut.
‘Dada,’ she said, ‘Barry is not dead, and I’m thinking they won’t say anything more
about our hurting him.’
Old Glos shook his head. He was glad the lad hadn’t met his death there; he didn’t
want the young man’s blood, but he knew what folk would say. The poorer he was
the more sure the world would be to trample on him. Mally said what she could to
comfort him, being full of comfort herself.
She would have crept up to the farm if she dared, to ask how Barry was. But her
courage failed her when she thought of that, so she went to work again, dragging
back the weed she had saved to the spot at which on the morrow she would load the
donkey. As she did this she saw Barry’s pony still standing patiently under the rock;
so she got a lock of fodder and threw it down before the beast.
It had become dark down in the cove, but she was still dragging back the seaweed,
when she saw the glimmer of a lantern coming down the pathway. It was a most
unusual sight, for lanterns were not common down in Malachi’s Cove. Down came
the lantern rather slowly,—much more slowly than she was in the habit of
37
descending, and then through the gloom she saw the figure of a man standing at the
bottom of the path. She went up to him, and saw that it was Mr Gunliffe, the father.
‘Is that Mally?’ said Gunliffe.
‘Yes, it is Mally; and how is Barry, Mr Gunliffe?’
‘You must come to ’un yourself now at once,’ said the farmer. ‘He won’t sleep a wink
Ull he’s seed you. You must not say but you’ll come.’
‘Sure I’ll come if I’m wanted,’ said Mally.
Gunliffe waited a moment, thinking that Mally might have to prepare herself, but Mally
needed
no preparation. She was dripping with salt water from the weed which she had been
dragging, and her elfin locks were streaming wildly from her head; but, such as she
was, she was ready.
‘Dada’s in bed,’ she said, ‘and I can go now if you please.’
Then Gunliffe turned round and followed her up the path, wondering at the life which
this girl led so far away from all her sex. It was now dark night, and he had found her
working at the very edge of the rolling waves by herself, in the darkness, while the
only human being who might seem to be her protector had already gone to his bed.
When they were at the top of the cliff Gunliffe took her by her hand, and led her
along. She did not comprehend this, but she made no attempt to take her hand from
his. Something he said about falling on the cliffs, but it was muttered so lowly that
Mally hardly understood him. But in truth the man knew that she had saved his boy’s
life, and that he had injured her instead of thanking her. He was now taking her to his
heart, and as words were wanting to him, he was showing his love after this silent
fashion. He held her by the hand as though she were a child, and Mally tripped along
at his side asking him no questions.
When they were at the farm-yard gate he stopped there for a moment.
‘Mally, my girl,’ he said, ‘he’ll not be content till he sees thee, but thou must not stay
long wi’ him, lass. Doctor says he’s weak like, and wants sleep badly.’
Mally merely nodded her head, and then they entered the house. Mally had never
been within it before, and looked about with wondering eyes at the furniture of the big
kitchen. Did any idea of her future destiny flash upon her then, I wonder? But she did
not pause here a moment, but was led up to the bedroom above stairs, where Barty
was lying on his mother’s bed.
‘Is it Mally herself?’ said the voice of the weak youth.
‘It’s Mally herself’ said the mother, ‘so now you can say what you please.’
‘Mally,’ said he, ‘Mally, it’s along of you that I’m alive this moment.’
‘I’ll not forget it on her,’ said the father, with his eyes turned away from her. ‘I’ll never
forget it on her.’
‘We hadn’t a one but only him,’ said the mother, with her apron up to her face.
‘Mally, you’ll be friends with me now?’ said Barry.
To have been made lady of the manor of the cove for ever, Mally couldn’t have
spoken a word now. It was not only that the words and presence of the people there
cowed her and made her speechless, but the big bed, and the looking-glass, and the
unheard-of wonders of the chamber, made her feel her own insignificance. But she
crept up to Barry’s side, and put her hand upon his.
‘I’ll come and get the weed, Mally; but it shall all be for you,’ said Barry.
‘Indeed, you won’t then, Barry dear,’ said the mother; ‘you’ll never go near the
awsome place again. What would we do if you were took from us?’
‘He mustn’t go near the hole if he does,’ said Mally, speaking at last in a solemn
voice, and imparting the knowledge which she had kept to herself while Barry was
her enemy; “specially not if the wind’s any way from the nor’rard.’
38
‘She’d better go down now,’ said the father.
Barry kissed the hand which he held, and Mally, looking at him as he did so, thought
that he was like an angel.
‘You’ll come and see us to-morrow, Mally?’ said he.
To this she made no answer, but followed Mrs Gunliffe out of the room. When they
were down in the kitchen the mother had tea for her, and thick milk, and a hot
cake,—all the delicacies which the farm could afford. I don’t know that Mally cared
much for the eating and drinking that night, but she began to think that the Gunliffes
were good people,— very good people. It was better thus, at any rate, than being
accused of murder and carried off to Camelford prison.
‘I’ll never forget it on her—never,’ the father had said.
Those words stuck to her from that moment, and seemed to sound in her ears all the
night. How glad she was that Barry had come down to the cove,—oh, yes, how glad!
There was no question of his dying now, and as for the blow on his forehead, what
harm was that to a lad like him?
‘But father shall go with you,’ said Mrs Gunliffe, when Mally prepared to start for the
cove by herself. Mally, however, would not hear of this. She could find her way to the
cove whether it was light or dark.
‘Mally, thou art my child now, and I shall think of thee so,’ said the mother, as the girl
went off by herself.
Mally thought of this, too, as she walked home. How could she become Mrs
Gunliffe’s child; ah, how?
I need not, I think, tell the tale any further. That Mally did become Mrs Gunliffe’s child,
and how she became so the reader will understand; and in process of time the big
kitchen and all the wonders of the farm-house were her own. The people said that
Barry Gunliffe had married a mermaid out of the sea; but when it was said in Mally’s
hearing I doubt whether she liked it; and when Barry himself would call her a
mermaid she would frown at him, and throw about her black hair, and pretend to cuff
him with her little hand.
Old Glos was brought up to the top of the cliff, and lived his few remaining days
under the roof of Mr Gunliffe’s house; and as for the cove and the right of seaweed,
from that time forth all that has been supposed to attach itself to Gunliffe’s farm, and I
do not know that any of the neighbours are prepared to dispute the right.
39
“Twelve Hours – Narratives and Perspectives” (1985), Adele Geras
3:30pm Friday afternoon. Early July.
She locked the front door behind her and walked to the corner of arlowe Avenue
trying very hard to look as though she were merely slipping out to the shops. You
never knew who might be watching. She’d said so to Alex, and told him to wait for
her round the corner.
As soon as she was in the car, as soon as the door was shut, Alex’s arms were
round her. He was kissing her. She was breathless, laughing, trembling.
“Not here, Alex,” she said. “Someone could see …”
“So what? I love you. I want you … I’m going to shout it out of this window …” He
began to wind it down.
“Stop it, Alex. I haven’t breathed a word to Beth.”
“She must have guessed. I’m practically a fixture in your house.”
“Well, she knows you’re a friend, of course she does, but …” Linda hesitated, “… she
doesn’t know the full extent.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Alex said, and began to drive away. “These teenagers know all
about it. Every detail. Innocence is a thing of the past, I’m told.”
“But I’m her mother,” Linda said, sighing. “You can imagine all kinds of things, but
that’s impossible … can you imagine your mother …?”
Alex wrinkled his nose.
“The mind boggles.”
“Exactly.”
When Beth was born, she lay in a perspex cot: you could look through and see her
tiny hands like pink sea creatures, waxing above the cellular blanket. I lay in bed and
stared at her for hours. It wasn’t only love washing over me, it was a kind of terror. I
thought then: this is what always and forever means. Every single thing she does
from now until the moment of my death will be the utmost importance to me. And it is.
The most important thing.
4:00pm
Beth Taylor rang the front door bell. There was no answer. Wearily she lifted the
school bag off her shoulder and rooted around in one of the pockets for the back
door key and walked around, and let herself in. This was not an unusual occurrence.
Linda worked as a secretary in a school nearby, and never knew if the Head was
going to pop in at half past three and tell her to type out a riveting letter about the
spread of nits among the second year Juniors. Also, she sometimes had to shop on
the way home. There was a note on the kitchen table.
“Dear Beth,
There’s a meeting after school today, and then Alex and I are going to a move and
dinner. Sorry about this, but it only came up at lunchtime. Help yourself out of the
freezer for your supper and do phone Pam or Rosie or Jean to visit you, but no
orgiastic teenage parties, please!
See you later,
Love,
Mum,”
Beth swore under her breath, screwed up the note and threw it into a corner. Then
she telephoned Pam.
“Come over after you’ve had supper,” she said. “I’m all on my own. My mum’s out
gallivanting again.”
40
“Right,” said Pam. “See you about seven thirty.”
Before the divorce, she was always there. That was the main thing about her: her
constant presence. There always used to be a smell about the kitchen of cooking.
Cakes and ratatouille mixed in with her smell, like old roses. I know, I know, said the
poor distraught child, turning her tear-stained face away from the TV cameras, a
Broken Home. How sad, how awful, how will I ever grow up to be anything other than
a delinquent … but it wasn’t like that. It was what they call a ‘civilized divorce’.
Everyone is still friends … or they say they are. I still see my dad … nothing’s really
changed, because I never saw him much anyway. He was always away/abroad/busy,
and now he’s all those things still, only not in this house. The divorce didn’t make
much difference to me, but it changed Mum. She got a job, and she got a freezer and
now bloody Alex, who’s practically my age. Alex is OK I suppose. She oculd have
told me a bit earlier, though. Prepared me. That’s the trouble with grown-ups. No
consideration for anyone else. Selfish.
5:00pm
“Last time I skived off I was twelve,” Linda said.
“What did you tell them?”
“That I was sick … that I’d be back OK on Monday.”
“And do you feel guilty?”
“Guilty as hell, but not on their account.”
Alex turned to look at her, and raised an eyebrow.
She said, “It’s Beth … how do you think she’d feel if she knew her mother’d been
making love half the afternoon? It’s naughty.”
“But nice. Like the cream cakes. Come here.”
Linda moved into the curve of Alex’s arm and closed her eyes.
After Clive left, I thought I’d never feel anything again. Then Alex came to the school,
and the first time I saw him, I grew soft all over. For ages I just looked at him
whenever I got the chance and wanted him like mad. I was like a kid, stupid and
tongue-tied, rushing down certain corridors, going home down certain streets in the
hope of bumping into him. I couldn’t believe, still can hardly believe, that he felt what
he said he felt. The first time he kissed me, behind the door of the stationary room
(what a cliché!) I blushed and nearly fainted, like a young girl, weak under his hands.
Now when I’m with him, it’s like being drunk: it’s heat and light and I have no control
over myself. I’m not behaving in a grown-up fashion. He’s ten years younger than I
am. His skin is smooth like a small child’s. When I’m with him, he’s all I can think
about. I’ve tried to be discreet at school, but I feel like a Ready Brek advertisement,
glowing all over, all the time.
7:45pm
“I think,” said Pam, “that he’s quite fanciable, from what I’ve seen.”
“He’s all right, I suppose,” said Beth, “if you liked the doomed poet type: all floppy
blond hair and long fingers.”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“I would,” said Beth. “I think there’s altogether too much sex about. I don’t reckon it’s
good for you.”
“Rubbish. Who said so?”
“I’ve read all about it.” Beth held up her hand and ticked the points off, one by one.
“First off, you can get pregnant. Then, if you go on the pill, your hormones get
41
mucked about, then you can get herpes and stuff like that, and then they say you can
get cancer of the cervix from it. Seems a bit bloody hazardous to me.”
“When you’re in love,” Pam said, “you don’t think about all that. You get carried
away.”
“I call that,” Beth said, “irresponsible. She’s my mum. She’s got no right to get carried
away … she’s got me to think of, hasn’t she?”
“But she isn’t fifteen, is she? All those things you mentioned are only supposed to
happen to people our age, not to mums. Probably grown-up propaganda to stop us
having fun.”
“I don’t know about fun so much … it sounds a bit messy and revolting to me.”
“It’s all different when you’re in love,” Pam said firmly.
“But how on earth are you meant to know when you are in love?” Beth sighed.
Pam pondered this question for a moment. “You know you’re in love,” she said
finally, “when all that stuff doesn’t seem messy and revolting any more.” She looked
at her watch. “Isn’t it time for that movie on telly?”
She’s changed, there’s no doubt about that. Her clothes are different. Well, before
she only ever stood about the house and did housework, or dug in the garden, so
jeans and a baggy old sweater were OK. Now she has to have decent clothes for
school, I understand that, but I don’t just mean her clothes … she’s had her ears
pierced, and wears long earrings that catch the light, and she’s changed her
perfume. It’s not soft pink roses anymore. It’s a brown, smooth, thick smell, like fur.
Perhaps Alex gave it to her. She wears blusher. I caught her putting on her make-up
the other day … her bra was pink and lacy and her bosom seemed to be slipping out
over the top. Her knickers were like tiny little lace-trimmed shorts … I asked her
about them and she said they were new and did I like them, but she was blushing like
crazy, all the way down her neck, and she dressed very quickly after that … that was
when I began to suspect about Alex. There’s a couple writhing around on telly this
very minute. If I think of Alex and Mum doing that, I feel quite ill. I wonder if Pam
really likes this film … I wouldn’t mind turning over to another channel.
2:30am
Linda leapt out of bed.
“Alex! Alex, wake up, for heaven’s sake! Look at the time … it’ll be morning at this
rate before I get home. Come on, Alex, please, wake up! Beth’ll be worried frantic …
please.”
Alex yawned and stretched and smiled.
“Relax. It’s OK. I’m awake now. I’ll be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. And don’t
worry about Beth. She’s a big girl. She’ll have gone to sleep hours ago.”
“Please hurry, Alex.” Linda sighed. “I knew we shouldn’t have come back here for
coffee after dinner. I knew at the time it was a mistake.”
“No, you didn’t. You couldn’t wait, go on, admit it…”
“I admit it, I admit it, now for the last time, will you get your bloody shoes on, and let’s
get out of here!”
I wish he would driver faster. I wish we could be home sooner. Oh, please, let Beth
be OK. Let her not be worried. Let the house not have burned to the ground, let there
not be a mad axeman on the loose. Please, please, don’t let me be punished. I know
I shouldn’t have gone back for coffee, but please let it be all right and I’ll never do it
again. It’s just that every second since she was born I’ve thought about every one of
my actions in relation to her. Will Beth be OK? Want to go to the hairdresser? Then
42
fix someone to pick her up from school. Want to go to the movies? Find a babysitter.
Beth twenty minutes late back from school? All kinds of horrors flying behind the
eyes. Now that she’s a little older, nearly a grown-up, I feel as though I’m able to do
certain things without looking over my shoulder to make sure she’s all right. But not
everything. Please, Beth, be all right. Don’t be angry. Please understand.
3:30am
“Mum, is that you?”
“Ssh. Yes it’s me. Are you OK?” Linda whispered.
“You don’t need to whisper. I’m not asleep.”
Linda came into Beth’s room and sat on the bed. “Haven’t you been asleep at all?”
“Oh, yes, on and off. In between worrying myself sick about you … where the hell
have you been? It’s bloody half past three in the morning.”
“Oh, Bethy, my love, I’m so sorry. I was having such a good time … I just forgot
about the time … I’m really sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.”
“I thought you might have had a car crash … you could have rung up, couldn’t you,
when you knew you’d be late. Couldn’t you? And what are you giggling about?”
Linda had started to laugh, and now, weak from lack of sleep and relief that Beth was
there, just the same under her flower printed sheets, her laughter grew and grew until
the tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“You should hear yourself … you sound like a mother, you do honestly, and me … I
feel like a juvenile delinquent.”
“Delinquent … yes. Juvenile … I’m not quite so sure …”
Beth, happy to have her mother home again, even wearing new perfume, began to
laugh as well.
It’s like one of those books where someone wakes up one day and she’s turned into
someone else. Or when a family discovers their child is really a mouse or something.
There’s a famous one where a guy wakes up and finds he’s become this huge
cockroach-type creature … you can see someone’s point of view much better from
another perspective. I always used to get dead irritated when I’d come home late and
see Mum peering down the road, all white-faced and frowny, but I know how she
feels now. She wasn’t at the movies till 3:30. She must be sleeping with Alex. That’ll
take some getting used to. I must get used to it. I will.
43
Science Fiction/Dystopian
Genre Conventions
For a long time, writers have been attempting to predict the future. They have been
interested in the possible effects of new technology on people’s lives, and how
people adapt to these changes. Writers have used their imginations to think about
the potential of science and also the possible dangers, and they have worked
through these ideas in their stories. The stories are usually written in the third person.
They often include reports and technological descriptions, with new names for the
people, palces and objects that the writer has invented.
The best science fiction helps us think freshly about our own world and society.
Science fiction stories often take a current trend or new development and show what
could happen if it is allowed to get out of hand. Some science fiction is concerned
with aliens, space ships, amazing technology and other worlds. Other science fiction
focuses more on the organisation of society or home ife in the future. Either type of
science fiction will show the reader something about the concerns and values of the
writer and the society he or she lives in.
Dystopias: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-recognize-a-dystopia-alex-gendler
Utopia: A place, state, or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws,
customs, and conditions.
Dystopia: A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the
illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic,
technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias, through an exaggerated worstcase scenario, make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political
system.
Backstory:
Dystopias are often part of a fictional universe, therefore a back story of how this
world came to be or how it evolved (or de-volved) from our current world is
necessary. The back story explains how the shift in control came to occur, with the
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end result being changed societal norms or a government now run by corporations,
totalitarian dictatorships or bureaucracies.
Characteristics of a Dystopian Society
 Propaganda is used to control the citizens of society.
 Information, independent thought, and freedom are restricted.
 A figurehead or concept is worshipped by the citizens of the society.
 Citizens are perceived to be under constant surveillance.
 Citizens have a fear of the outside world.
 Citizens live in a dehumanized state.
 The natural world is banished and distrusted.
 Citizens conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent are bad.
 The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world.
Types of Dystopian Controls
Most dystopian works present a world in which oppressive societal control and the
illusion of a perfect society are maintained through one or more of the following types
of controls:
 Corporate control: One or more large corporations control society through
products, advertising, and/or the media. Examples include Minority Report and
Running Man.
 Bureaucratic control: Society is controlled by a mindless bureaucracy through
a tangle of red tape, relentless regulations, and incompetent government
officials. Examples in film include Brazil.
 Technological control: Society is controlled by technology—through
computers, robots, and/or scientific means. Examples include The Matrix, The
Terminator, and I, Robot.
 Philosophical/religious control: Society is controlled by philosophical or
religious ideology often enforced through a dictatorship or theocratic
government.
The Dystopian Protagonist
 often feels trapped and is struggling to escape.
 questions the existing social and political systems.
 believes or feels that something is terribly wrong with the society in which he
or she lives.
 helps the audience recognizes the negative aspects of the dystopian world
through his or her perspective.
Hero:
There are a few different types of hero/protagonist that can occur in dystopian
stories. One is the protagonist who intuitively feels something is wrong with society
and sets out to change it, believing that it is possible to overthrow the dictatorship, or
merely escape from the misery. Often the protagonist's opinion varies significantly
from those around him, leading to clashes and linking back to the question asked
earlier regarding perception of dystopias.
Another common form of protagonist is the high-standing, accepted hero, who is part
of the Utopian perception of the dystopia, but eventually discovers or comes to
understand how wrong society has become and either attempts to change it or
destroy it.
Conflict:
Often, the hero meets a person who represents the dystopia, possibly the leader of
the society. In the conflict, the hero meets and is sometimes helped by a group of
people who are also trying to escape or destroy the dystopia. Sometimes they are
people who were once part of the dystopia, but were exiled or have escaped, or they
45
have created their own society within the dystopia (Think of the Fringes in The
Chrysalids).
Climax:
In dystopian literature, the story is often unresolved. Often the dystopia is not brought
down. The hero may make their individual stand (or with the group discussed above)
and often fails, but gives hope to others in the dystopia. Sometimes this climax is the
hero's escape from the dystopia (Think of The Giver). Other times the hero fails to
achieve anything and the dystopia continues as before.
Adapted from http://libraryschool.libguidescms.com/yadystopianlit
And
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson926/DefinitionCharacteristics.pdf
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“The Pedestrian” (1951), Ray Bradbury
To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November, to put
your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in
pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do. He would
stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk in four
directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of
A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off,
sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.
Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his
way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking
through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the
windows. Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still
undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomb- like
building was still open.
Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise
on the lumpy walk. For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because
the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and
lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of a lone figure,
himself, in the early November evening.
On this particular evening he began his journey in a westerly direction, toward the hidden sea. There
was a good crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree
inside; you could feel the cold light going on and off, all the branches filled with invisible snow. He
listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold
quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal
pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell.
"Hello, in there," he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. "What's up tonight on
Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States
Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?"
The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in
midcountry. If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the
center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry
river beds, the streets, for company.
"What is it now?" he asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch. "Eight-thirty P.M.? Time for a dozen
assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?"
Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? He hesitated, but went on when
nothing more happened. He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk. The cement was
vanishing under flowers and grass. In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he
had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.
He came to a cloverleaf intersection which stood silent where two main highways crossed the town.
During the day it was a thunderous surge of cars, the gas stations open, a great insect rustling and a
ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarab- beetles, a faint incense puttering from their exhausts,
skimmed homeward to the far directions. But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry
season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.
He turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home. He was within a block of his
destination when the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light
47
upon him. He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn
toward it.
A metallic voice called to him: "Stand still. Stay where you are! Don't move!"
He halted.
"Put up your hands!"
"But-" he said.
"Your hands up! Or we'll Shoot!"
The police, of course, but what a rare, incredible thing; in a city of three million, there was only one
police car left, wasn't that correct? Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been
cut down from three cars to one. Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for
this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.
"Your name?" said the police car in a metallic whisper. He couldn't see the men in it for the bright light
in his eyes.
"Leonard Mead," he said.
"Speak up!"
"Leonard Mead!"
"Business or profession?"
"I guess you'd call me a writer."
"No profession," said the police car, as if talking to itself. The light held him fixed, like a museum
specimen, needle thrust through chest.
"You might say that, " said Mr. Mead. He hadn't written in years. Magazines and books didn't sell any
more. Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy. The
tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights
touching their faces, but never really touching them.
"No profession," said the phonograph voice, hissing. "What are you doing out?"
"Walking," said Leonard Mead. "Walking!"
"Just walking," he said simply, but his face felt cold.
"Walking, just walking, walking?"
"Yes, sir."
"Walking where? For what?"
"Walking for air. Walking to see."
"Your address!"
"Eleven South Saint James Street."
"And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?"
"No."
"No?" There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.
"Are you married, Mr. Mead?"
"No."
"Not married," said the police voice behind the fiery beam, The moon was high and clear among the
stars and the houses were gray and silent.
"Nobody wanted me," said Leonard Mead with a smile.
48
"Don't speak unless you're spoken to!"
Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.
"Just walking, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"But you haven't explained for what purpose."
"I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk."
"Have you done this often?"
"Every night for years."
The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming. "Well, Mr. Mead," it
said.
"Is that all?" he asked politely.
"Yes," said the voice. "Here." There was a sigh, a pop. The back door of the police car sprang wide.
"Get in."
"Wait a minute, I haven't done anything!"
"Get in."
"I protest!"
"Mr. Mead."
He walked like a man suddenly drunk. As he passed the front window of the car he looked in. As he
had expected, there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.
"Get in."
He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with
bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and
metallic. There was nothing soft there.
"Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi," said the iron voice. "But-"
"Where are you taking me?"
The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping
card by punch-slotted card under electric eyes. "To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive
Tendencies."
He got in. The door shut with a soft thud. The police car rolled through the night avenues, flashing its
dim lights ahead.
They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were
dark, but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow
illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.
"That's my house," said Leonard Mead. No one answered him.
The car moved down the empty river-bed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the
empty side-walks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.
49
“Harrison Bergerson” (1968), Kurt Vonneget Jnr
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal
before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter
than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was
stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th,
and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents
of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for
instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in
that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteenyear-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very
hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't
think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his
intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his
ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a
government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would
send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair
advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's
cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits
from a burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.
"Huh" said George.
"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They
weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway.
They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces
were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty
face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the
vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get
very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his
thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George
what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer," said
George.
"I'd think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,"
said Hazel a little envious. "All the things they think up."
"Um," said George.
"Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?" said Hazel.
Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper
50
General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. "If I was Diana Moon Glampers,"
said Hazel, "I'd have chimes on Sunday-just chimes. Kind of in honor of
religion."
"I could think, if it was just chimes," said George.
"Well-maybe make 'em real loud," said Hazel. "I think I'd make a good
Handicapper General."
"Good as anybody else," said George.
"Who knows better then I do what normal is?" said Hazel.
"Right," said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son
who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head
stopped that.
"Boy!" said Hazel, "that was a doozy, wasn't it?"
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on
the rims of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the
studio floor, were holding their temples.
"All of a sudden you look so tired," said Hazel. "Why don't you stretch out
on the sofa, so's you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch."
She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag,
which was padlocked around George's neck. "Go on and rest the bag for a
little while," she said. "I don't care if you're not equal to me for a
while."
George weighed the bag with his hands. "I don't mind it," he said. "I don't
notice it any more. It's just a part of me."
"You been so tired lately-kind of wore out," said Hazel. "If there was just
some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take
out a few of them lead balls. Just a few."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took
out," said George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel.
"I mean-you don't compete with anybody around here. You just set around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away
with it-and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with
everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would
you?"
"I'd hate it," said Hazel.
"There you are," said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what
do you think happens to society?"
If Hazel hadn't been able to come up with an answer to this question, George
couldn't have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
"Reckon it'd fall all apart," said Hazel.
"What would?" said George blankly.
"Society," said Hazel uncertainly. "Wasn't that what you just said?
"Who knows?" said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It
wasn't clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer,
like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a
minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say,
"Ladies and Gentlemen."
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
51
"That's all right-" Hazel said of the announcer, "he tried. That's the big
thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get
a nice raise for trying so hard."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must
have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous.
And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all
the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred
pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice
for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. "Excuse
me-" she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely
uncompetitive.
"Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen," she said in a grackle squawk, "has just
escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow
the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and
should be regarded as extremely dangerous."
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen-upside
down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture
showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet
and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison's appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever
born heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H-G men
could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he
wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses.
The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him
whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry,
a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison
looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three
hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times
a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his
even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.
"If you see this boy," said the ballerina, "do not - I repeat, do not - try
to reason with him."
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The
photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as
though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have –
for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. "My
God-" said George, "that must be Harrison!"
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an
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automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A
living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood - in the center of the studio.
The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas,
technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him,
expecting to die.
"I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody
must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
"Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a
greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can
become!"
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore
straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison's scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head
harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and
spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor,
the god of thunder.
"I shall now select my Empress!" he said, looking down on the cowering
people. "Let
the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!"
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical
handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
"Now-" said Harrison, taking her hand, "shall we show the people the meaning
of the word dance? Music!" he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of
their handicaps, too. "Play your best," he told them, "and I'll make you
barons and dukes and earls."
The music began. It was normal at first-cheap, silly, false. But Harrison
snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang
the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while-listened
gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the
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weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the
laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers
nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it.
And then, neutraling gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended
in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long
time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the
studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the
Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and
told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out
into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him
up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel.
"Yup," she said.
"What about?" he said.
"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television."
"What was it?" he said.
"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.
"Forget sad things," said George.
"I always do," said Hazel.
"That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting
gun in his head.
"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.
"You can say that again," said George.
"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."
54
“Examination Day” (1958), Henry Slesar
The Jordans never spoke of the exam, not until their son, Dickie, was 12 years old.
It was on his birthday that Mrs. Jordan first mentioned the subject in his presence,
and the anxious manner of her speech caused her husband to answer sharply.
“Forget about it,” he said. “He’ll do all right.”
They were at the breakfast table, and the boy looked up from his plate curiously. He
was an alert-eyed youngster, with flat blond hair and a quick nervous manner. He
didn’t understand what the sudden tension was about, but he did know that today
was his birthday, and he wanted harmony above all.
Somewhere in the little apartment there were wrapped, beribboned packages waiting
to be opened. In the tiny wall-kitchen, something warm and sweet was being
prepared in the automatic stove. He wanted the day to be happy, and the moistness
of his mother’s eyes, the scowl of his father’s face, spoiled the mood of expectation
with which he had greeted the morning.
“What exam?” he asked.
His mother looked at the tablecloth. “It’s just a sort of Government intelligence test
they give children at the age of twelve. You’ll be taking it next week. It’s nothing to
worry about.”
“You mean a test like in school?”
“Something like that,” his father said, getting up from the table. “Go read your comic
books, Dickie.”
The boy rose and wandered toward that part of the living room that had been “his”
corner since infancy. He fingered the topmost comic of the stack, but seemed
uninterested in the colorful squares of fast-paced action. He wandered toward the
window and peered gloomily at the veil of mist that shrouded the glass.
“Why did it have to rain today?” he asked. “Why couldn’t it rain tomorrow?”
His father, now slumped into an armchair with the Government newspaper, rattled
the sheets in vexation. “Because it just did, that’s all. Rain makes the grass grow.”
“Why, Dad?”
“Because it does, that’s all.”
Dickie puckered his brow. “What makes it green though? The grass?”
“Nobody knows,” his father snapped, then immediately regretted his abruptness.
Later in the day, it was birthday time again. His mother beamed as she handed over
the gaily-colored packages, and even his father managed a grin and a ruffle-of-the
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hair. He kissed his mother and shook hands gravely with his father. Then the birthday
cake was brought forth, and the ceremonies concluded.
An hour later, seated by the window, he watched the sun force its way between the
clouds.
“Dad,” he said, “how far away is the sun?”
“Five thousand miles,” his father said.
Dickie sat at the breakfast table and again saw moisture in his mother’s eyes. He
didn’t connect her tears with the exam until his father suddenly brought the subject to
light again.
“Well, Dickie,” he said, with a manly frown, “You’ve got an appointment today.”
“I know, Dad. I hope …”
“Now it’s nothing to worry about. Thousands of children take this test every day. The
Government wants to know how smart you are, Dickie. That’s all there is to it.”
“I get good marks in school,” he said hesitantly.
“This is different. This is a special kind of test. They give you this stuff to drink, you
see, and then you go into a room where there’s a sort of machine …”
“What stuff to drink?” Dickie said.
“It’s nothing. It tastes like peppermint. It’s just to make sure you answer the questions
truthfully. Not that the Government thinks you won’t tell the truth, but this stuff makes
sure.”
Dickie’s face showed puzzlement, and a touch of fright. He looked at his mother, and
she composed her face into a misty smile.
“Everything will be all right,” she said.
“Of course it will,” his father agreed. “You’re a good boy, Dickie; you’ll do fine. Then
we’ll come home and celebrate. Alright?”
“Yes sir,” Dickie said.
They entered the Government Educational Building fifteen minutes before the
appointed hour. They crossed the marble floors of the great, pillared lobby, passed
beneath an archway and entered an automatic elevator that brought them to the
fourth floor.
There was a young man wearing an insignialess tunic, seated at a polished desk in
front of Room 404. He held a clipboard in his hand, and he checked the list down to
the Js and permitted the Jordans to enter.
56
The room was as cold and official as a courtroom, with long benches flanking metal
tables. There were several fathers and sons already there, and a thin-lipped woman
with cropped black hair was passing out sheets of paper.
Mr. Jordan filled out the form, and returned it to the clerk. Then he told Dickie: “It
won’t be long now. When they call your name, you go through the doorway at that
end of the room.” He indicated the portal with his finger.
A concealed loudspeaker crackled and called off the first name. Dickie saw a boy
leave his father’s side reluctantly and walk slowly towards the door.
At five minutes of eleven, they called the name of Jordan.
“Good luck, son,” his father said, without looking at him. “I’ll call for you when the test
is over.”
Dickie walked to the door and turned the knob. The room inside was dim, and he
could barely make out the features of the gray-tunicked attendant who greeted him.
“Sit down,” the man said softly. He indicated a high stool behind his desk. “Your
name’s Richard Jordan?”
“Yes sir.”
“Your classification number is 600-115. Drink this, Richard.”
He lifted a plastic cup from the desk and handed it to the boy. The liquid inside had
the consistency of buttermilk, tasted only vaguely of the promised peppermint. Dickie
downed it, and handed the man the empty cup.
He sat in silence, feeling drowsy, while the man wrote busily on a sheet of paper.
Then the attendant looked at his watch, and rose to stand only inches from Dickie’s
face. He unclipped a pen-like object from the pocket of his tunic, and flashed a tiny
light into the boy’s eyes.
“All right,” he said. “Come with me, Richard.”
He led Dickie to the end of the room, where a single wooden armchair faced a multidialed computing machine. There was a microphone on the left arm of the chair, and
when the boy sat down, he found its pinpoint head conveniently at his mouth. “Now
just relax, Richard. You’ll be asked some questions, and you think them over
carefully. Then give your answers into the microphone. The machine will take care of
the rest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll leave you alone now. Whenever you want to start, just say ‘ready’ into the
microphone.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man squeezed his shoulder, and left.
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Dickie said, “Ready.”
Lights appeared on the machine, and a mechanism whirred. A voice said: “Complete
this sequence. One, four, seven, ten …”
Mr. and Mrs. Jordan were in the living room, not speaking, not even speculating. It
was almost four o’clock when the telephone rang. The woman tried to reach it first,
but her husband was quicker.
“Mr. Jordan?”
The voice was clipped; a brisk, official voice.
“Yes, speaking.”
“This is the Government Educational Service. Your son, Richard M. Jordan,
Classification 600-115, has completed the Government examination. We regret to
inform you that his intelligence quotient has exceeded the Government regulation,
according to Rule 84, Section 5, of the New Code.”
Across the room, the woman cried out, knowing nothing except the emotion she read
on her husband's face.
“You may specify by telephone,” the voice droned on, “whether you wish his body
interred by the Government or would you prefer a private burial place? The fee for
Government burial is ten dollars.”
58
Horror/Gothic
Genre Conventions
Fear is a basic, universal emotion which can either terrify or delight, depending on
the circumstances. We might be wrenched awake screaming from our wrost
nightmare of choose to put the frighteners on ourselves by watching a late night
horror movie or reading an horrific tale.
This double aspect of horror has given the genre its lasting appeal, all the way from
Gothic goings-on in the eighteenth century castles to more contemporary disturbance
in suburban houses.
Horror stories are often about people who have over-reached themselves in some
way. They have desperately striven for something or someone, but have too easily
made moral compromises on the way. Ends have mattered to them more than
means. Then they begin the slow, inevitable, terrifying descent into a fate frequently
worse than death itself – a hell on earth, awfulness without end.
In a way, horror stories can be seen as warnings about where greed can lead. They
often show what happens to people who compromise their moral judgement and
allow the obsessive pursuit of personal goals to come before the consideration of
others. As in any genre the trappings, trimmings, codes and conventions are
important. The details of the setting, weather, time of day and physical description of
the characters all make a difference. The frequent use of science and scientists is
interesting, perhaps reflecting fears that many people had, and still have, when faced
with the complexities of scientific discovery or new technology.
Animals and certain creatures loom large, sometimes quite literally. A certain way of
telling the story which distances readers, holding them at bay, is often noticeable.
This can be achieved by using the third person through reports, letters, notes, or the
observations of an outsider.
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“The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), Edgar Allan Poe
It’s true! yes, I have been ill, very ill. But why do you say that I have lost control of my
mind, why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my
mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad? Indeed, the illness only made my mind, my
feelings, my senses stronger, more powerful. My sense of hearing especially became
more powerful. I could hear sounds I had never heard before. I heard sounds from
heaven; and I heard sounds from hell!
Listen! Listen, and I will tell you how it happened. You will see, you will hear how
healthy my mind is.
It is impossible to say how the idea first entered my head. There was no reason for
what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did
not want his money. I think it was his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the
eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, and then
fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it. When the old man looked at me
with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood
became cold. And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye
forever!
So you think that I am mad? A madman cannot plan. But you should have seen me.
During all of that week I was as friendly to the old man as I could be, and warm, and
loving.
Every night about twelve o’clock I slowly opened his door. And when the door was
opened wide enough I put my hand in, and then my head. In my hand I held a light
covered over with a cloth so that no light showed. And I stood there quietly. Then,
carefully, I lifted the cloth, just a little, so that a single, thin, small light fell across that
eye. For seven nights I did this, seven long nights, every night at midnight. Always
the eye was closed, so it was impossible for me to do the work. For it was not the old
man I felt I had to kill; it was the eye, his Evil Eye.
And every morning I went to his room, and with a warm, friendly voice I asked him
how he had slept. He could not guess that every night, just at twelve, I looked in at
him as he slept.
The eighth night I was more than usually careful as I opened the door. The hands of
a clock move more quickly than did my hand. Never before had I felt so strongly my
own power; I was now sure of success.
The old man was lying there not dreaming that I was at his door. Suddenly he moved
in his bed. You may think I became afraid. But no. The darkness in his room was
thick and black. I knew he could not see the opening of the door. I continued to push
the door, slowly, softly. I put in my head. I put in my hand, with the covered light.
Suddenly the old man sat straight up in bed and cried, “Who’s there??!”
I stood quite still. For a whole hour I did not move. Nor did I hear him again lie down
in his bed. He just sat there, listening. Then I heard a sound, a low cry of fear which
escaped from the old man. Now I knew that he was sitting up in his bed, filled with
fear; I knew that he knew that I was there. He did not see me there. He could not
hear me there. He felt me there. Now he knew that Death was standing there.
Slowly, little by little, I lifted the cloth, until a small, small light escaped from under it
to fall upon — to fall upon that vulture eye! It was open — wide, wide open, and my
anger increased as it looked straight at me. I could not see the old man’s face. Only
that eye, that hard blue eye, and the blood in my body became like ice.
Have I not told you that my hearing had become unusually strong? Now I could hear
a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. It was the
beating of the old man’s heart. I tried to stand quietly. But the sound grew louder. The
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old man’s fear must have been great indeed. And as the sound grew louder my
anger became greater and more painful. But it was more than anger. In the quiet
night, in the dark silence of the bedroom my anger became fear — for the heart was
beating so loudly that I was sure some one must hear. The time had come! I rushed
into the room, crying, “Die! Die!” The old man gave a loud cry of fear as I fell upon
him and held the bedcovers tightly over his head. Still his heart was beating; but I
smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutes that heart continued to
beat; but at last the beating stopped. The old man was dead. I took away the
bedcovers and held my ear over his heart. There was no sound. Yes. He was dead!
Dead as a stone. His eye would trouble me no more!
So I am mad, you say? You should have seen how careful I was to put the body
where no one could find it. First I cut off the head, then the arms and the legs. I was
careful not to let a single drop of blood fall on the floor. I pulled up three of the boards
that formed the floor, and put the pieces of the body there. Then I put the boards
down again, carefully, so carefully that no human eye could see that they had been
moved.
As I finished this work I heard that someone was at the door. It was now four o’clock
in the morning, but still dark. I had no fear, however, as I went down to open the
door. Three men were at the door, three officers of the police. One of the neighbors
had heard the old man’s cry and had called the police; these three had come to ask
questions and to search the house.
I asked the policemen to come in. The cry, I said, was my own, in a dream. The old
man, I said, was away; he had gone to visit a friend in the country. I took them
through the whole house, telling them to search it all, to search well. I led them finally
into the old man’s bed- room. As if playing a game with them I asked them to sit
down and talk for a while.
My easy, quiet manner made the policemen believe my story. So they sat talking with
me in a friendly way. But although I answered them in the same way, I soon wished
that they would go. My head hurt and there was a strange sound in my ears. I talked
more, and faster. The sound became clearer. And still they sat and talked.
Suddenly I knew that the sound was not in my ears, it was not just inside my head. At
that moment I must have become quite white. I talked still faster and louder. And the
sound, too, became louder. It was a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock
heard through a wall, a sound I knew well. Louder it became, and louder. Why did the
men not go? Louder, louder. I stood up and walked quickly around the room. I
pushed my chair across the floor to make more noise, to cover that terrible sound. I
talked even louder. And still the men sat and talked, and smiled. Was it possible that
they could not hear??
No! They heard! I was certain of it. They knew! Now it was they who were playing a
game with me. I was suffering more than I could bear, from their smiles, and from
that sound. Louder, louder, louder! Suddenly I could bear it no longer. I pointed at the
boards and cried, “Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boards and you shall see! I killed
him. But why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not stop!?”
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“Serena Sees” (1990), G.K. Sprinkle
Barbara inhaled deeply, awareness seeping through the trance. If only she could
come back from her mediations to those who wanted her, instead of also facing
station politics and sceptics. Snatches of sounds emanated from the headphones
around her neck. She opened her eyes, scanning the studio equipment. One phone
line was blinking. The CRT showed all four lines open, three breaks before eleven.
“The new guy’s on this hour,” the producer said through her desk speaker. “I’ll be
back before midnight.”
She looked up through the glass separating radio studio from control room. “No.”
“It’s okay, I’ve briefed him,” he said. “Seen those ratings? We’re number one this time
slot.” He held his right thumb up. “Checked your abort/delay switch?”
She smiled and nodded. He left. They were a great team. She entertained; he
promoted. She brought her lips to the microphone, “Testing, one … two … three.”
She looked into the control room. The new tech nodded, and flashed ten fingers
twice. “Go ahead, use the desk speaker,” she said. She put the headphones on.
Perfect iming. The eerie music the producer liked ended.
“There are things beyond sight. Things beyond sound. Things in the dark reaches of
the mind that few can see.” Barbara hated the deep bass voice-over. “She lights the
way … Serena.” The music crescendoed; cymbals clashed.
“Good evening,” Barbara said. “Welcome to Serene Sees. Your questions answered
Monday through Friday from ten until one. All phone lines are open, 387-KNTE. Your
problems, your questions: I want to help. Call 387-KNTE.” She looked at the CRT –
no Dave, Ed, or Al, thank God, but he did keep changing his name – Mary on the first
line. She pushed it. “Hello Mary. You’re on the air with Serena. Can I help?”
“Hello Serena, It’s so good to talk with you. I listen all the time. You’re wonderful.”
“Thank you Mary. Let me help you.” Good, a talker. Should be easy.
“Oh, I’m praying you can. Will my husband find a job?”
Barbara sighed. These calls tore her apart. People wanting advice instead of fun.
“He’s been out of work a while,” she tried.
“Yes. Six months. They say he’s too old.”
God, he’d probably never get another job. “I see a job in his future, but not soon. I
feel he’ll be starting a business of his own.”
“But he was a telephone lineman.”
That was a toughie. “He’s always wanted to do something else.”
“Yes. How did you know he wanted to raise chickens?”
“Serena sees. Thank you for calling. Our lines are open for your questions, 387KNTE. Hello, Jack, you’re on with Serena Sees. Your question.” Please, not him, she
thought.
“Yes. I wonder about my future.”
Someone new, good. “The future is cloudy, the more I know the better.” That should
bring him out.
“Will my girl take me back?”
“I see pain, harsh words between you.”
“Yes.”
He was a clam, but maybe … “She wants to get married; you don’t.”
“No.”
“She’s worried about money.” Please. Talk.
“I thought so. Fraud.”
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Oops. She pushed the abort/delay switch. “We don’t say things like that on Serena
Sees,” she said. Thank god for delays; no one would know what he said. “More of
Serena Sees after these messages. Our lines are open; 387-KNTE.”
Barbara sipped water as the commercials droned in her ears. Her hands shook
slightly. Why did it bother her so much this time? She gave people what they wanted;
nothing wrong with that. No, it wasn’t the last caller. It was the other one with the
cold, quiet voice. That Dave or Ed or Al, or whatever his name was. What did he
want? Why did he call?
“Five seconds,” the new tech whispered through the desk speaker.
“Speak louder,” she said. “It’s okay.” Barbara leaned toward the microphone. The
commercial ended. “It’s so good to be back. Our lines are open for you – 387-KNTE.
Hello, Don, you’re on with Serena Sees. Your question.”
“What do you see in your future, Barbara?”
No, not that voice, four nights in a row. She didn’t see the new guy in the booth. She
pushed the abort switch. How did that caller get through?
He laughed. “Don’t know, do you psychic? You told Cindy I was wrong for her, and
you know nothing about us.”
The call didn’t disconnect. Barbara jiggled the headphones – dead. He was talking
through the desk speaker. She plugged her speaker into another jack. The 10.30
news tape was running. She pushed a phone line and dialled 911. Nothing
happened. The lights went off. She felt a cold draft as the door to the hall opened
behind her.
63